Long-lived activation products in TRIGA Mark II research reactor concrete shield: calculation and experiment

In this paper, a process of long-lived activity determination in research reactor concrete shielding is presented. The described process is a combination of experiment and calculations. Samples of original heavy reactor concrete containing mineral barite were irradiated inside the reactor shielding to measure its long-lived induced radioactivity. The most active long-lived (γ emitting) radioactive nuclides in the concrete were found to be 133Ba, 60Co and 152Eu. Neutron flux, activation rates and concrete activity were calculated for actual shield geometry for different irradiation and cooling times using TORT and ORIGEN codes. Experimental results of flux and activity measurements showed good agreement with the results of calculations. Volume of activated concrete waste after reactor decommissioning was estimated for particular case of Jožef Stefan Institute TRIGA reactor. It was observed that the clearance levels of some important long-lived isotopes typical for barite concrete (e.g. 133Ba, 41Ca) are not included in the IAEA and EU basic safety standards.