SYSTEM FOR ANALYZING/INSPECTING AIRBORNE RADIOACTIVE PARTICLES SAMPLED IN A DRAFT FLUE

• US 20100030489A1
• Filed: 10/28/2008
• Published: 02/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 08/01/2008
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Institute Of Nuclear Energy Research Atomic Energy Council Executive Yuan
• Original Assignee: Institute Of Nuclear Energy Research Atomic Energy Council Executive Yuan
• Inventors: LIANG, KUN-HSUAN, PAN, TZONG-LIANG, CHIOEU, YI-FU, FANG, HSIN-FA, CHEN, ING-JANE
• Application Number:
  US12/259,353
• Publication Number:
  US 20100030489A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 702/30
• CPC Class Codes: G01T 1/178 for measuring specific activity in the presence of other radioactive substances, e.g. natural, in the air or in liquids such as rain water
• CPC Class Codes: G01T 7/00 Details of radiation-measuring instruments

Abstract

A system for analyzing/inspecting airborne radioactive particles sampled in a draft flue is disclosed, which comprises: a front detector, at least an air intake tube, a capture vessel, an inspection device, a flow meter, a hand-held electric device, a blower motor, With the aforesaid system, the radioactivity distribution relating to the airborne particles as well as the peak of the distribution can be detected, by which a sampling time can be determined for achieving longer period of time allowed for an analysis to be performed while rejecting the radioactive interference in the draft flue. Thereby, background noise relating to ambient radioactivity can be minimized and thus the detection limit of the aforesaid system is reduced, so that the system of the invention is much more sensitive compared to those conventional real-time radioactivity detection means with regard to the detection of radioactive nuclides in airborne particles.

Claims

1. A system for analyzing/inspecting airborne radioactive particles sampled in a draft flue, comprising:

a pre-detector, for detecting and inspecting airborne radioactivity of the draft flue so as to output a detection value relating to the detection;

an air intake tube, configured with an inlet for collecting airborne particles from a discharge area;

a capture vessel, connected with the air intake tube for receiving the collected particles therefrom to be used as a sample;

a sample outlet, connected to the capture vessel for discharging the excess portion of the sample along with the portion of the sample whichever is being inspected back to the draft flue;

a detector, for inspecting and measuring a radiation dose relating to the airborne radioactivity in the capture vessel so as to obtain an analysis relating to its spectrum distribution and radioactivity intensity while outputting numerical values of the analysis accord to the inspection;

a flow meter, for measuring an airborne flow rate while outputting the same;

a hand-held electric device, for receiving values outputted from the pre-detector, the detector and the flow meter while feeding the received values to a software programmed in the hand-held electric device for performing a calculation therewith and thus outputting a control signal according to the calculation;

a software, adapted for analyzing information obtained from the pre-detector in a manner that the evaluation is made for determine whether the radioactivity of the airborne particles is raising or dropping according to the detection value outputted from the pre-detector while basing upon the evaluation to determine a sampling time for obtaining the sample of the airborne particles in the draft flue; and

using the detection value outputted from the pre-detector to perform a calculation for obtaining values relating to the peak amount of airborne particles being discharged and the high time when the airborne particles is being discharged; and

by combining with data relating to the total amount of the airborne particles being discharged, another evaluation is performed for obtaining values relating to the total radioactivity of the airborne particle being discharged, the average radioactivity during the high time when the airborne particles is being discharged and the radioactivity at the time when airborne particles being discharged reaches its peak.

a blower motor, for receiving the control signal from the hand-held electric device to be used for controlling the ON/OFF of the same in a manner the collected airborne particles used as sample is fed back to an intake area of the draft flue.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the capture vessel is vacuumed.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the capture vessel is constructed as a piston structure.

4. The system of claim 1, the capture vessel further comprises a plurality of absorbents.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the capture vessel is constructed as a multi-cell structure.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the capture vessel is constructed as a spiral coil structure.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the hand-held electric device is a device selected from the group consisting of:

a notebook computer, an ultra-mobile person computer (UMPC), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a netbook computer, and a smart phone.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the pre-detector, the detector, the flow meter, the blow motor is configured with a wireless transmission device to be used for transmitting electric signal in a wireless manner.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the wireless transmission device uses a technique selected from the group consisting of:

Bluetooth transmission, Infrared transmission, radio frequency transmission, WiFi, WiMAX, and ZigBEE.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the software programmed in the hand-held electric device is capable of analyzing the detection of the pre-detector so as to obtain values relating to the total amount of airborne particles being discharged, the peak amount of airborne particles being discharged, the total amount of airborne particle being discharged as well as the high time when the airborne particles is being discharged in a manner that values relating to the total radioactivity of the airborne particle being discharged, the average radioactivity during the high time when the airborne particles is being discharged and the radioactivity at the time when airborne particles being discharged reaches its peak.