Measuring and Modeling Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material: Interpreting the Relationship Between the Natural Radionuclides Present

摘要

The regulatory release of sites and facilities (property) for restricted or unrestricted use has evolved beyond prescribed levels to model-derived dose and risk based limits. Dose models for deriving corresponding soil and structure radionuclide concentration guidelines are necessarily simplified representations of complex processes. A conceptual site model is often developed to present a reasonable and somewhat conservative representation of the physical and chemical properties of the impacted material. Dose modeling software is then used to estimate resulting dose and/or radionuclide specific acceptance criteria (activity concentrations). When the source term includes any or all of the uranium, thorium or actinium natural decay series radionuclides the interpretation of the relationship between the individual radionuclides of the series is critical to a technically correct and complete assessment of risk and/or derivation of radionuclide specific acceptance criteria. Unlike man-made radionuclides, modeling and measuring naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) and technologically enhanced NORM (TENORM) source terms involves the interpretation of the relationship between the radionuclide present, e.g., secular equilibrium, enrichment, depletion or transient equilibrium.Isotopes of uranium, radium, and thorium occur in all three natural decay series. Each of the three series also produces a radon gas isotope as one of its progeny. In nature, the radionuclides in the three natural decay series are in a state that is approaching or has achieved secular equilibrium, in which the activities of all radionuclides within each series are nearly equal. However, ores containing the three natural decay series may begin in approximate secular equilibrium, but after processing, equilibrium may be broken and certain elements (and the radioactive isotopes of that element) may be concentrated or removed. Where the original ore may have contained one long chain of natural decay series radionuclides, the resulting TENORM source term may contain several smaller decay chains, each headed by a different longer lived member of the original series. This paper presents the anatomy of common TENORM source terms and the pitfalls of measuring, interpreting and modeling these source terms. Modeling TENORM with common software such as RESRAD is discussed.