SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL RADIATION MONITORS FOR THE 1980s*

During the two decades that automatic gammaradiation monitors have been applied to detecting special nuclear material (SNM), little attention has been devoted to how well the monitors perform in plant environments. Visits to 11 DOE facilities revealed poor information flow between developers, manufacturers, and maintainers of SNM radiation monitors. To help users achieve best performance from their monitors or select new ones, Los Alamos National Laboratory developed a hand-held monitor user's guide, calibration manuals for some commercial SNM pedestrian monitors, and an applications guide for SNM pedestrian monitors. In addition, Los Alamos evaluated new commercial SNM monitors, considered whether to apply neutron detection to SNM monitoring, and investigated the problem of operating gamma-ray SNM monitors in variable plutonium gamma-radiation fields. As a result, the performance of existing SNM monitors will improve and alternative monitoring methods will become commercially available during the 1980s.