Mapping of the natural radioactivity in external environments of CDTN, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil

This work aims to map and analyze the natural radioactivity in external environments at the Centro de Desenvolvimento de Tecnologia Nuclear (CDTN), in order to observe the variation of radioactivity in this locality. It is important to point out that, as it is an area of a nuclear research center, some points indicated significant values of radiation when compared to natural ones, being these high values from artificial sources, for example, from radioactive waste. This study was performed with the RS-230 Radiation Solutions / CANADA spectrometer coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS), which quantitatively and qualitatively identifies environmental radionuclides such as ⁴⁰K, ²³⁸U and ²³²Th. The obtained results were exported to the ArcGis® program where a geospatial analysis was performed to correlate the RS-230 data with the coordinates obtained from the GPS. According to the values the results were classified into five classes: very low, low , medium, high and very high. In addition to understanding natural radioactivity in CDTN, the paper is trying to provide an information base for future applications in other similar environments, that is, environments that present a possible combination of natural and artificial radioactivity