The rate of decay of fresh fission products from a nuclear reactor

Determining the rate of decay of fresh fission products from a nuclear reactor is complex because of the number of isotopes involved, different types of decay, half-lives of the isotopes, and some isotopes decay into other radioactive isotopes. Traditionally, a simplified rule of t-1.2 or 7s and 10s is used to determine the dose rate from nuclear weapons and can be to estimate the dose rate from fresh fission products of a nuclear reactor. An experiment was designed to determine the dose rate with respect to time from fresh fission products of a nuclear reactor. The experiment exposed 0.5 grams of U3O8 to a fast and thermal neutron flux from a TRIGA Research Reactor (Lakewood, CO) for ten minutes. The dose rate from the fission products was measured by four Mirion DMC 2000XB electronic personal dosimeters over a period of six days. The resulting dose rate with respect to time had a slope of t-1.024 and could be simplified to a rule of 10s: the does rate of fresh fission products from a nuclear reactor decreases by a factor of 10 for every 10 units of time.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences

Grantor dc:publisher

Colorado State University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2013

Authors dc:creator

• Dolan, David J., author
• Johnson, Thomas, advisor
• Brandl, Alexander, committee member
• Desir, Rosemond, committee member

• dose rate
• nuclear reactor
• fission products

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25675/3.018833

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/79039