Basic Research of Activities to Recover A Construction and Environment Damaged by An Accident

Period: 2003-2004Customer: Nuclear Safety Research Association of Japan (NSRA)

Objective: determine changes in activity during irradiation by reactor neutrons, identify content of the elements, which irradiation results in formation of radioactive isotopes that have evident gamma radiation with medium and long half life (several days and more) in the FCM samples provided for the analysis.

The following activities were accomplished within the framework of the project:

  • separation of uranium, plutonium, americium, cesium, and strontium isotopes by means of ion-exchange technique;
  • long-term irradiation of samples in ‘wet’ vertical isotope channel of WWER-10M research reactor;
  • research of inactive sand and concrete samples (their mass was approximately several dozens of grams) and a serpentinite sample; serpentinite is a material that was located near to the reactor core of the damaged Unit 4 and could be contaminated with fuel particles;
  • research of specific activities of gamma-emitted radionuclides in FCM samples following their packaging (by means of gamma spectrometric equipment).

The following were obtained as a research results:

  • a large amount of information on changes in FCM samples’ activity during their irradiation by reactor neutrons of different spectral distribution;
  • data on elemental composition of basic types of the Shelter Object radioactive waste.

Contact:
Head of Nuclear and Physics Calculations Department
Dmytro V. Koniaiev
Tel. +38 (04579) 2 30 78
Fax +38 (04579) 2 81 44
e-mail: dkonyaev@chornobyl.net

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