Determination of the radionuclide inventory in accelerator waste using calculation and radiochemical analysis

We use a description of the work carried out to determine the radioactive inventory for a redundant beam-dump from the PSI accelerator complex, as an illustration of techniques for the classification and characterisation of accelerator waste and how some difficulties can be circumvented. The work has been carried out using a combination of calculation and sample analysis: The inventory calculation effectively involves a large scale Monte-Carlo transport calculation of a medium-sized spallation facility and for the sample analysis, standard radiochemical analysis techniques have had to be extended to include AMS measurements so as to allow measurement of some of the long half-life, waste disposal relevant, nuclides.