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Radiotracer Application at Dresden University and Fraunhofer Institute for Nondestructive Material Testing (Dresden)

Zeuner, A.; Krueger, P.; Jentsch, T.

In 1957, the Faculty of Nuclear Technology was founded at the Dresden University of Technology. One of the aims of this faculty was to develop methods of radio tracer usage and to apply these methods at technical scale. The group "Technical Isotope Application" performed a lot of measurements in industrial plants. This group worked under different names up to 2005. Since about 2000, some capabilities have been transferred to the Fraunhofer Institute of Non-Destructive Testing, Dresden branch. In the following, an overview is given on working fields or investigated equipments, resp.
1. Application and development of radionuclide generators
Radiotracer investigations are done preferably by using short-lived radionuclides. As in nuclear medicine, the application of radionuclide generators (Mo-99/Tc-99m and Snl13/ Inl13m) has advantages also in technological applications, especially the long usability of the generator system. For dedicated purposes, namely the investigation of high temperature processes, a new generator system (Ba-140/La-140) was developed and applied.
2. Work on further development of radio tracer

  • In many papers, the momentum method was explored. This method has the advantage, that a residence time distribution is interpreted without any model assumptions. The mean residence time and other parameters are calculated only from statistical moments and applied to
material transport processes.
  • Activity estimation is an important part prior an investigation will be accepted by the radiation protection authorities. A computer program is developed based on the plant values and on the expected worst residence time distribution.
  • During radiotracer measurements, the residual pulse density sometimes does not decrease to the original background. With the assumption, that the residual pulse density is caused by deposition of radioactive material near the detector, correction procedures were developed and used.
3. Working fields
Open radionuclides:
Residence time measurements in
  • Water, waste water, filtration
  • Gas exchange and reactions in gas phase; fluid beds
  • Conveyers, dryers, rotary kilns, mills
  • Plants for chemical fibres, polymers; in extruders and others
  • Estimation of oil consumption of cumbustion engines
  • Particle tracking in a screw conveyer by activated glass balls
  • Investigation of mixing processes Application of sealed sources
  • Estimation of ash content and heat value of brown coal
  • Estimation of sedimentation in a smoke channel of a thermal cracker
  • Steam estimation in streaming hot water
  • Poster
    The 6th International Conference on Tracers and Tracing Methods, TRACER 6, 06.-08.06.2011, Oslo, Norge

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Publ.-Id: 25895