COMPARISON OF RADON EXHALATION RATE MEASUREMENTS ON REFERENCE DEVICE IN OPEN AND CLOSED LOOP BY ALPHAGUARD IN FLOW-THROUGH MODE

Abstract

Radon-222 (Rn-222) exhalation rate is vital for estimating radiation risk from many kinds of materials. AlphaGUARD measures the radon concentration based on the ionization chamber principle, which is currently recognized as a reference instrument to measure radon. In China, measurements of radon exhalation rate are performed by AlphaGUARD operated in flow-through mode on a reference device to verify measurement accuracy. These measurements are performed in both open and closed loop. AlphaGUARD can fast rapidly the variation of the radon concentration in the chamber, which is tightly pressed against the surface of the medium to accumulate the exhaled radon. When the model is used to obtain the radon exhalation rate, the radon exhalation rates obtained by nonlinear data fitting on the measured radon concentrations are similar to the reference value of the device. The difference of radon exhalation rate values of six measurements is small.