ORTEC Systems for In Situ Measurements

In Situ Measurements

As the name implies, an in-situ measurement is made where the sample lies, rather than the more common approach of taking a “grab sample” back to a counting laboratory.

The reasons for in-situ measurements are many, and the approaches therefore are widely different depending on the needs of the application.

In contrast to laboratory measurements where the detector-sample geometry is usually well defined, in-situ measurements are typified by poorly defined geometries and therefore present special difficulties in calibration.

Large scale in-situ measurements from moving vehicles, either on the ground or in the air, can be necessary following radiological accidents, for pollution monitoring, or for the location of missing (so called “orphan”) radioactive sources. ORTEC offers a mobile search system for this purpose.

For site characterization measurements and the quantification of specific activities in and on surfaces such as walls, floors and in soils, the ORTEC ISO-CART and ISOPlus software, which includes the well established “one meter” EML wide area soil methodology provides a complete solution for a variety of needs.

Particular examples of in-situ gamma spectroscopy are the in-situ identification of Chemical Container Content with the ORTEC PINS system and the technique used to monitor nuclear materials hold up in process plants, embodied in the HMS4 system.

Nuclear Safeguards presents a number of challenges for in-situ measurement techniques.

The ORTEC trans-SPEC and trans-SPEC-100 provide an all in one, PORTABLE LN2-Free High Purity Germanium gamma spectrometer for the first time.