Airborne HPGe spectrometer for monitoring of air dose rates and surface activities

Abstract

This contribution describes the application of HPGe detector for the airborne quantitative analysis. The hardware of the airborne HPGe system was designed from the commercial components with only exception of the newly designed AirHPGeSpec special software to control, measure and process the data. The system was calibrated for the local air kerma rates measured on helicopter board and its conversion to the air kerma rates at 1 m above the ground was proposed. Two examples of the air kerma rates measured over the former uranium mining areas are presented and compared with the results of other airborne system on the board. This airborne HPGe system could be also used for measuring the surface activities in a radiation event. The nuclides of 131I, 132Te -132I, 133I, 134I, 135I, 137Cs, 134Cs, 88Rb and 103Ru were selected from possible nuclear power plant emergency scenarios. The Monte Carlo simulation was used to calculate HPGe detector efficiencies for the flight altitudes from 25 to 300 m for the energies from 300 keV to 3 MeV of the nuclides in question. Also, the detection limits according to the Currie method as well as ISO 11929-2010 for selected nuclides are presented.

Keywords

• HPGe detector
• Airborne monitoring
• Air kerma rate
• Monte Carlo simulation
• Surface activities
• Detection limits