Abstract

As part of its institutional competences, INAIL (National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work) promotes and carries out activities for preventing the risks to which workers may be subjected to in different work scenarios.

One of these research activities pursued and concluded was about the decontamination and securing of 38 concrete wells, which in former time contained radioactive sources, namely 137Cs.

In a first phase, it was used a decontaminant liquid to remove part of radionuclides from concrete walls, and after, in a second phase, these liquids were treated with an evaporative process to minimize radioactive waste.

Measurements of superficial activity before and after the decontamination and the quantity of radionuclides in the removed liquid revealed that some radioactivity was taken off, but not totally.

The question after that the activity was done is how much in depth contamination has arrived.

For having an answer about the penetration, there should be extracted some specimens from concrete, but for various problems, due to risks associated to the site, this wasn’t possible.

So, a solution is to use some mathematical models and equations combined each other for having an estimation of the penetration of cesium into the walls of these holes.

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