The more you know about something, the easier it is to make the right decision. Characterisation of concrete in nuclear plants is no different.

Whether it is to inform a maintenance work, a D&D strategy or a waste route, characterisation data are central to a decision. In the case of concrete, it remains a challenging task as the environment as well as the make-up of the concrete itself can pose challenges during sampling and characterisation.

When decommissioning a nuclear facility, a painstaking process is initiated to dismantle the facility and clean up any remaining nuclear material so it no longer poses a threat to safety. This process requires a lot of sampling to determine the isotopic analysis and activities contained within various materials at a site.

Unfortunately, traditional methods are extremely labour- and time-intensive. To that you must often add elemental and asbestos analysis too so that you do sentence your waste accordingly (or choose an appropriate storage method).

It would be great to bridge the gap and characterise irradiated concrete in-situ. Yes, a complete package for radiological, chemical & asbestos characterisation would be nice.

Wait, do I hear that this is already on the shelf and can replace conventional sampling methods now?