Automatic acquisition and management system for NaI(Tl) spectra

The objective of this report is to describe the experimental set-up of an automated system for the measurement of radionuclide concentrations in the human body and on contaminated samples. In particular, the system was designed to measure radionuclides in the whole body, the plutonium concentration in human lungs, radionuclides in contaminated wounds, the iodine burden of the thyroid, and the radionuclide concentration in contaminated samples. The system consists of ten NaI(Tl) scintillation detectors and one twin proportional counter. The spectra are processed by a personal computer that accepts data from four independent analog-to-digital converter/multi-channel analyser units. The data handling consists in three steps: spectrum analysis, data storage, and data processing. Additional routines were written for the measurement of high-level body burdens, gamma scanning, and the quality control of the measured lines of the spectra. The spectra and data are processed by 50 programs, which are written in BASIC and FORTRAN. The report contains flow charts of these programs. 1 tab., 7 figs. (A.S.)