A method for the complete analysis of NORM building materials by γ-ray spectrometry using HPGe detectors

B Quintana; M C Pedrosa; L Vázquez-Canelas; R Santamaría; M A Sanjuán; F Puertas

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.07.045

A method for the complete analysis of NORM building materials by γ-ray spectrometry using HPGe detectors

Appl Radiat Isot. 2018 Apr:134:470-476. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.07.045. Epub 2017 Aug 3.

Authors

B Quintana¹, M C Pedrosa², L Vázquez-Canelas², R Santamaría², M A Sanjuán³, F Puertas⁴

Affiliations

¹ Laboratorio de Radiaciones Ionizantes, Departamento de Física Fundamental, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain. Electronic address: quintana@usal.es.
² Laboratorio de Radiaciones Ionizantes, Departamento de Física Fundamental, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.
³ Instituto Español del Cemento y sus Aplicaciones, IECA, Spain.
⁴ Instituto de Ciencias de la Construcción Eduardo Torroja, CSIC, Spain.

PMID: 28838724
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2017.07.045

Abstract

A methodology including software tools for analysing NORM building materials and residues by low-level gamma-ray spectrometry has been developed. It comprises deconvolution of gamma-ray spectra using the software GALEA with focus on the natural radionuclides and Monte Carlo simulations for efficiency and true coincidence summing corrections. The methodology has been tested on a range of building materials and validated against reference materials.

Keywords: Broad energy Ge detectors; Low-level background γ-ray spectrometry; NORM building materials; True-coincidence-summing corrections; γ-ray spectrum analysis, Monte Carlo simulated efficiencies.