Ionising radiation metrology for the metallurgical industry

¹ CIEMAT – Laboratorio de Metrología de Radiaciones Ionizantes, Avda. Complutense 40, 28040 Madrid, Spain
² EC-JRC-IRMM – European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, 2440 Geel, Belgium
³ PTB – Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
⁴ CM – Cesky Metrologicky Institut, Brno, Czech Republic
⁵ SMU – Slovenský Metrologický Ústav, Bratislava, Slovakia
⁶ ENEA – Istituto Nazionale di Metrologia delle Radiazioni Ionizzanti, Rome, Italy
⁷ ENVINET – shareholding company, Trebic, Czech Republic

^⋆ Correspondence: e.garciatorano@ciemat.es

Received: 25 February 2014
Accepted: 24 April 2014

Abstract

Every year millions tons of steel are produced worldwide from recycled scrap loads. Although the detection systems in the steelworks prevent most orphan radioactive sources from entering the furnace, there is still the possibility of accidentally melting a radioactive source. The MetroMetal project, carried out in the frame of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP), addresses this problem by studying the existing measurement systems, developing sets of reference sources in various matrices (cast steel, slag, fume dust) and proposing new detection instruments. This paper presents the key lines of the project and describes the preparation of radioactive sources as well as the intercomparison exercises used to test the calibration and correction methods proposed within the project.