Study of coincidence summing effect using Monte Carlo simulation to improve large samples measurement for environmental applications

Highlights: • MCNP5 Simulation in the aim of studying coincidence summing effect. • Study of ⁶⁰Co & ⁸⁸Y coincidence impact in dose evolution of Baïnem Forest. • Soil Erosion assessment in the forest site of Baïnem, Northern Algeria. A new measurement model composed of High Purity Germanium detector HPGe including Lead Shield with a mixed source of Am-241, Cd-109, …in a soil matrix packed in a cylindrical container was developed by Monte Carlo N-Particles code MCNP5. The Monte Carlo models being largely used for efficiencies calculations in routine environmental radioactivity measurements of high volume soil samples. In order to validate the simulation, a multi-radionuclides soil matrix source in a cylindrical container is prepared. Comparing the simulated results to the experimental ones, allows us to correct coincidence summing in the soil standard and study its effect in activity measurements where a good agreement is found between corrected activities and results found by another geometry and show how uncorrected efficiency curves lead to erroneous activity calculation. Finally, the developed model is applied to study the distribution of natural and artificial radioactivity in a forest site in Bainem, northern of Algeria, these results are invested for radiological impact and soil erosion studies in the study Area.