Direct recoil radon emanation from crystalline phases. Influence of moisture content

This paper is devoted to the study of the radon emanation coefficient vs. water mass fraction for mineral samples. Modeling is performed considering only the direct recoil phenomena and assuming planar pores with high lengths-to-width aspect ratios. Water is assumed either to fill the pore alternatively with air or to form a continuous film on the pore surface. This modeling is applied to uranium mine tailings for which the pore size distribution was experimentally measured. It enables a good description of the change of the experimental radon emanation coefficients with the moisture content of the studied samples.