Determination of the activity content of solid radioactive wastes

Current international norms suggest that the solid radioactive wastes leaving a nuclear plant should bear information on radionuclide composition and activity, in addition to a full description of the waste form and the external radiation field on the container. In the case of nuclear reactor waste, the measured radiation field can be used to derive activity levels, a step that may be called curiefication of waste. This paper presents a user-friendly PC-based method based on γ-shielding principles for the curiefication of routine reactor wastes. The method was applied to research reactor solid waste. The results show that the computed results are conservative and provide acceptable estimates of radioactivity content in the waste. (author)