Software of Radioactivity Measurement and Control System for Barreled Nuclear Waste With Segmented Gamma Scanning

Abstract

Segmented Gamma Scanning (SGS) is a kind of nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques, widely used in online detection for nuclear waste drums to record the types and contents of radionuclides in the nuclear wastes. It is convenient to classify and dispose of nuclear waste according to the test results, and it also avoids radiation damage to inspectors from the destructive analysis. A new software of the radioactive analysis and monitoring system for nuclear waste barrels with SGS was developed in this work, which is mainly composed of two parts including control upper computer software and radionuclide analysis software, in which control software contained motion control and Multi-channel Analyzer (MCA) control. The controlling of the mechanical platform realized the rotation of the waste drums and the synchronous lifting and lowering of the transmission source and the detector, so as to facilitate the layered scanning of the drums. The motion control is an indispensable part of the detection system, whose precision of the movement is directly affected the accuracy of the detection results. In the radioactive measurement, a high purity germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometer was used to obtain the gamma-ray spectrum, in which the MCA was responsible for the control of spectrometer and gamma-ray spectrum data record. Therefore, the MCA control part must adjust the high voltage of the HPGe and the parameters of measurement. The gamma-ray spectrum contained the radioactive information of the nuclear wastes in the drums. The analysis of the radioactive data is the core of the software, including spectrum data resolving and the radioactive reconstructed of the radionuclides in the drums. Finally, the information such as the type and activity of the radionuclides in the barrels was provided to the user. The software was written with the C# programming language, which realized the accurate control and operation of the mechanical device and the orderly performed of motion detection. To establish communication, the software used Ethernet’s TCP/IP as the control network, in which the manual mode and auto mode were alternatives. In conclusion, the software promotes the coordination and integration of motion control, MCA control and gamma-ray spectrum data analysis in the process of automatic detection of barreled nuclear waste with SGS.