Remote techniques

The need for decontamination should be considered at the design stage. If it is considered that a worthwhile reduction in radiation exposure would result, the necessary provision for decontamination facihties should be made. 

When decontamination facilities are being planned, all components that are expected to come into contact with coolant or waste material should be considered possible items for decontamination. 

Special consideration should be given to rooms where leaks or spills of contaminated liquid might occur. These areas should be designed to allow easy 

The floor drain system should include filtration to prevent an excessive amount of particulates entering the subsequent water treatment systems. 

There should be an adequate tank volume so that any temporary transfers of radioactive water do not burden systems that are intended for other purposes. The tank volume should also be sufficient to ensure that any releases of liquid radioactive effluent to the environment will remain small. 

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This chapter reviews the development of optical gas sensors, starting with an initial emphasis on optical-fibre remoted techniques and finishing with a particular focus on our own group s work on highly selective methods using correlation spectroscopy. This latter section includes extensive theoretical modelling of a correlation spectroscopy method, and compares theory with practice for a CO2 sensor. 

Measurements either from the ground or from satellites have been a major contribution to this effort, and satellite instruments such as LIMS (Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere) on the Nimbus 7 satellite (I) in 1979 and ATMOS (Atmospheric Trace Molecular Spectroscopy instrument), a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer aboard Spacelab 3 (2) in 1987, have produced valuable data sets that still challenge our models. But these remote techniques are not always adequate for resolving photochemistry on the small scale, particularly in the lower stratosphere. In some cases, the altitude resolution provided by remote techniques has been insufficient to provide unambiguous concentrations of trace gas species at specific altitudes. Insufficient altitude resolution is a handicap particularly for those trace species with large gradients in either altitude or latitude. Often only the most abundant species can be measured. Many of the reactive trace gases, the key species in most chemical transformations, have small abundances that are difficult to detect accurately from remote platforms. 

Today we are convinced that there are numerous applications for this new analytical tool, especially when controls have to be performed on rare, high-cost, or infectious material for which a nonintrusive remote technique is compulsory or that repetitive measurements need to be done on the same sample over prolonged periods. 

Recommendation 7-1. The U.S. Army should coordinate with other federal agencies on developing an easy-to-use, comprehensive database and on the evaluation of remote techniques to detect buried CWM in a reliable but cost-effective manner. 

Originally it was intended to use manual methods for isolation and removal of items to the conditioning area and recovery of plutonium residues, followed by remote size reduction, waste monitoring, and disposal. Subsequent studies have indicated that there is little benefit, in terms of minimizing operator dose, from the use of remote techniques when the additional installation and maintenance activities associated with the more complex remote equipment is considered. Thus manual techniques are being employed. 

Small and medium-sized components of the primary stem are serviced and repaired inside the reactor building either by remote techniques in an inert gas atmosphere or by hands-on maintenance after washing and decontamination. Large components, like intermediate heat exchangers and primary pumps, can be repaired in a specially constructed off-island maintenance building. The basic facilities comprise the following ... 

Measures to limit radioactive releases and radioactive exposures of workers and the public during normal operation and anticipated operational occurrences in accordance with the philosophy of dose limitation recommended by Ref. [8], with particular consideration being given to use of remote techniques in areas of radiation to reduce worker exposures ... 

Principle of the Remote Field Eddy Current Technique... 

T R Schmidt. History of the Remote-Field Eddy Current Inspection Technique. Materials Evaluation Jan 1989... 

Laser Raman diagnostic teclmiques offer remote, nonintnisive, nonperturbing measurements with high spatial and temporal resolution [158], This is particularly advantageous in the area of combustion chemistry. Physical probes for temperature and concentration measurements can be debatable in many combustion systems, such as furnaces, internal combustors etc., since they may disturb the medium or, even worse, not withstand the hostile enviromnents [159]. Laser Raman techniques are employed since two of the dominant molecules associated with air-fed combustion are O2 and N2. Flomonuclear diatomic molecules unable to have a nuclear coordinate-dependent dipole moment caimot be diagnosed by infrared spectroscopy. Other combustion species include CFl, CO2, FI2O and FI2 [160]. These molecules are probed by Raman spectroscopy to detenuine the temperature profile and species concentration m various combustion processes. 

Anhydrous calcium chloride absorbs water to a capacity of 3.5 kg/kg of calcium chloride and forms a nonreuseable brine. This technique is best suited for remote appHcations where modest dew point depressions are required and gas processing volumes are small. 

It is becoming more and more desirable for the analytical chemist to move away from the laboratory and iato the field via ia-field instmments and remote, poiat of use, measurements. As a result, process analytical chemistry has undergone an offensive thmst ia regard to problem solviag capabihty (77—79). In situ analysis enables the study of key process parameters for the purpose of definition and subsequent optimization. On-line analysis capabihty has already been extended to gc, Ic, ms, and ftir techniques as well as to icp-emission spectroscopy, flow iajection analysis, and near iafrared spectrophotometry (80). 

The objective ia any analytical procedure is to determine the composition of the sample (speciation) and the amounts of different species present (quantification). Spectroscopic techniques can both identify and quantify ia a single measurement. A wide range of compounds can be detected with high specificity, even ia multicomponent mixtures. Many spectroscopic methods are noninvasive, involving no sample collection, pretreatment, or contamination (see Nondestructive evaluation). Because only optical access to the sample is needed, instmments can be remotely situated for environmental and process monitoring (see Analytical METHODS Process control). Spectroscopy provides rapid real-time results, and is easily adaptable to continuous long-term monitoring. Spectra also carry information on sample conditions such as temperature and pressure. 

Hereia optical spectroscopy for laboratory analysis, giving some attention to remote sensing usiag either active laser-based systems (13—16) or passive (radiometric) techniques (17—20), is emphasized. 

Microwave spectroscopy is used for studyiag free radicals and ia gas analysis (30). Much laboratory work has been devoted to molecules of astrophysical iaterest (31). The technique is highly sensitive 10 mole may suffice for a spectmm. At microwave resolution, frequencies are so specific that a single line can unambiguously identify a component of a gas mixture. Tabulations of microwave transitions are available (32,33). Remote atmospheric sensing (34) is illustrated by the analysis of trace CIO, O, HO2, HCN, and N2O at the part per trillion level ia the stratosphere, usiag a ground-based millimeter-wave superheterodyne receiver at 260—280 GH2 (35). 

Radiometry. Radiometry is the measurement of radiant electromagnetic energy (17,18,134), considered herein to be the direct detection and spectroscopic analysis of ambient thermal emission, as distinguished from techniques in which the sample is actively probed. At any temperature above absolute zero, some molecules are in thermally populated excited levels, and transitions from these to the ground state radiate energy at characteristic frequencies. Erom Wien s displacement law, T = 2898 //m-K, the emission maximum at 300 K is near 10 fim in the mid-ir. This radiation occurs at just the energies of molecular rovibrational transitions, so thermal emission carries much the same information as an ir absorption spectmm. Detection of the emissions of remote thermal sources is the ultimate passive and noninvasive technique, requiring not even an optical probe of the sampled volume. 

The very low Hg concentration levels in ice core of remote glaciers require an ultra-sensitive analytical technique as well as a contamination-free sample preparation methodology. The potential of two analytical techniques for Hg determination - cold vapour inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (CV ICP-SFMS) and atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS) with gold amalgamation was studied. 

The cathodic protection of pipelines is best monitored by an intensive measurement technique according to Section 3.7, by an off potential survey eveiy 3 years and by remote monitoring of pipe/soil potentials. After installation of parallel pipelines, it can be ascertained by intensive measurements whether new damage of the pipe coating has occurred. These measurements provide evidence of possible external actions that can cause mechanical damage. 

None of the foregoing methods will tell the frequency or duration of exposure of any receptor to irritant or odorous gases when each such exposure may exceed the irritation or odor response threshold for only minutes or seconds. The only way that such an exposure can be measured instrumentally is by an essentially continuous monitoring instrument, the record from which will yield not only this kind of information but also all the information required to assess hourly, daUy, monthly, and annual phenomena. Continuous monitoring techniques may be used at a particular location or involve remote sensing techniques. 

The principal requirement of a sampling system is to obtain a sample that is representative of the atmosphere at a particular place and time and that can be evaluated as a mass or volume concentration. Remote monitoring techniques are discussed in Chapter 15. The sampling system should not alter the chemical or physical characteristics of the sample in an undesirable manner. The major components of most sampling systems are an inlet manifold, an air mover, a collection medium, and a flow measurement device. 

List the advantages and disadvantages of remote sensing techniques by optical methods. 

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