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An airborne plutonium monitoring system which is installed in the ZPR-9 (Zero Power Reactor No. 9) facility at Argonne National Laboratory is described. The design and operational experience are discussed. This monitoring system utilizes particle size and density discrimination, alpha particle energy discrimination, and a background-subtraction techique operating in cascade to separate airborne-plutonium activity from other, naturally occurring, airborne activity. Relatively high sensitivity and reliability are achieved. (auth)

The Savannah River Plant (SRP) releases small amounts of radioactive nuclides to the atmosphere as a consequence of the production of radioisotopes. The potential for larger accidental releases to the atmosphere also exists, although the probability for most accidents is low. To provide for emergency meteorological response to accidental releases and to conduct research on the transport and diffusion of radioactive nuclides in the routine releases, a series of high-quality meteorological sensors have been located on towers in and about SRP. These towers are equipped with instrumentation to detect and record temperature and wind turbulence. Signals from the meterological sensors are brought by land-line to the SRL Weather Center-Analysis Laboratory (WC-AL). At the WC-AL, a Weather Information and Display (WIND) system has been installed. The WIND system consists of a minicomputer with graphical displays in the WC-AL and also in the emergency operating center (EOC) of SRP. In addition, data are available to the system from standard weather teletype services, which provide both routine surface weather observations and routine upper air wind and temperature observations for the southeastern United States. Should there be an accidental release to the atmosphere, available recorded data and computer codes would allow the calculation and …