Tritium stack monitoring

[JPreisig@AOL.COM]

Hmmmmmm,



     This is from:    jpreisig@aol.com  .



     A long time ago now, I was a production engineer at a facility that 

produced neutron generator tubes for oil well logging.  We used to get 100

Curie (I think) gas cylinders of tritium, transfer the tritium to a

(zirconium) and later a uranium getter (a gas storage system).  Eventually,

one Curie of tritium ended up in each neutron generator tube.  When gas 

transfers didn't go so well, sometimes some of the tritium would end up

in the vacuum pumps.  Hopefully, not too often.  The transfers were done

under pretty nice vacuum (Varian flange technology and all that).



     The exhaust stack of the facility had a tritium monitor, which was

commercially built.  Sometimes it was difficult to set the set point

(the triggering level) of the monitor.



     Anyway these neutron generator tubes are still being manufactured, and 

are available for purchase at popular prices (well out of my price range).

The manufacturer is Schlumberger/Sangamo Weston/EMR Photoelectric

or some variation of these names.  They are located in Princeton Junction,

New Jersey (Wallace Road???) right across from the Princeton Junction

train station.  They also manufacture very rugged photomultiplier tubes,

some of which are used in well-logging and some of which are used for

scientific purposes.



     Anyway, if you give these folks a call and ask to talk to someone 

involved

with their neutron generator production, they may be able to tell you

what kind of tritium monitoring system they are running these days.

Maybe they have a web site????



       Regards,                 J.R. Preisig, Ph.D.





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