| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1829098 | Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment | 2008 | 10 Pages |
Beam losses are responsible for material activation in most of the components of particle accelerators. The activation is caused by several nuclear processes and varies with the irradiation history and the characteristics of the material (namely chemical composition and size). Once at the end of their operational lifetime, these materials require radiological characterization.The radionuclide inventory depends on the particle spectrum, the irradiation history and the chemical composition of the material. As long as these factors are known and the material cross-sections are available, the induced radioactivity can be calculated analytically. However, these factors vary widely among different items of waste and sometimes they are only partially known.The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN, Geneva) has been operating accelerators for high-energy physics for 50 years. Different methods for the evaluation of the radionuclide inventory are currently under investigation at CERN, including the so-called “fingerprint method”. This paper provides a mathematical formulation of the fingerprint method highlighting its advantages and limits of validity. The study includes the application to a real case and the validation of the predictions.
