TY - JOUR
T1 - The use of portable equipment for the activity concentration index determination of building materials: method validation and survey of building materials on the Belgian market
AU - Stals, Mark
AU - Verhoeven, Sanne
AU - Bruggeman, Michel
AU - Pellens, Veerle
AU - Schroeyers, Wouter
AU - Schreurs, Sonja
A2 - Verheyen, Leen
N1 - Score = 10
PY - 2014/1
Y1 - 2014/1
N2 - The Euratom BSS requires that in the near future (2015) the building materials for application in dwellings or buildings such as offices or workshops are screened for NORM nuclides. The screening tool is the activity concentration index (ACI). Therefore it is expected that a large number of building materials
will be screened for NORM and thus require ACI determination. Nowadays, the proposed standard for determination of building material ACI is a laboratory analyses technique. In this paper, the B-NORM method for determination of
building material ACI is assessed as a faster method that can be performed on-site. The B-NORM method utilizes a LaBr3(Ce) scintillation probe to obtain the spectral data. The ACI was determined by interpreting the gamma spectrum from 226Ra and its progeny; 232Th progeny and 40K. In order to assess the accuracy of the B-NORM method, a large selection of samples was analyzed by a certified laboratory and the results were compared with the B-NORM results. The results obtained with the B-NORM method were in good correlation with the results obtained by the certified laboratory. The B-NORM method was applied to analyze more than 120 building materials. No building materials exceeded the proposed reference level of 1 mSv/year.
AB - The Euratom BSS requires that in the near future (2015) the building materials for application in dwellings or buildings such as offices or workshops are screened for NORM nuclides. The screening tool is the activity concentration index (ACI). Therefore it is expected that a large number of building materials
will be screened for NORM and thus require ACI determination. Nowadays, the proposed standard for determination of building material ACI is a laboratory analyses technique. In this paper, the B-NORM method for determination of
building material ACI is assessed as a faster method that can be performed on-site. The B-NORM method utilizes a LaBr3(Ce) scintillation probe to obtain the spectral data. The ACI was determined by interpreting the gamma spectrum from 226Ra and its progeny; 232Th progeny and 40K. In order to assess the accuracy of the B-NORM method, a large selection of samples was analyzed by a certified laboratory and the results were compared with the B-NORM results. The results obtained with the B-NORM method were in good correlation with the results obtained by the certified laboratory. The B-NORM method was applied to analyze more than 120 building materials. No building materials exceeded the proposed reference level of 1 mSv/year.
KW - Building materials
KW - NORM
KW - Euratom Basic Safety Standards
KW - Activity concentration
KW - Measurement
UR - http://ecm.sckcen.be/OTCS/llisapi.dll/open/ezp_133193
UR - http://knowledgecentre.sckcen.be/so2/bibref/11044
U2 - 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2013.09.012
DO - 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2013.09.012
M3 - Article
SN - 0265-931X
VL - 127
SP - 56
EP - 63
JO - Journal of environmental radioactivity
JF - Journal of environmental radioactivity
ER -