Continuing Saga of Alpha CAM (Continuous Air Monitor) Development at Los Alamos.

摘要

Monitoring requirements for airborne plutonium are becoming increasingly stringent as regulations require progressively lower limits of detection. The current requirement of 8 DAC-hours reflects the limitations of today's technology for workplace monitoring. Simultaneously, closed-ventilation systems and massive concrete buildings are concentrating radon and its daughter products. The daughter products produce a spectrum that degrades the ability of a continuous air monitor (CAM) to make accurate low-level determinations of plutonium. Los Alamos has been working on improved methods for detecting airborne alpha emitters in the presence of radon daughter products for the last 2 years. These efforts were recently coordinated into a program to examine all facets of CAM operation including aerosol collection, detection, signal processing, computation, alarming, communications, and finally, instrument cost. 4 refs., 2 figs.