Re: CdTe survey instruments

[Keith Welch <welch@CEBAF.GOV>]

At 10:18 AM 8/15/96 -0500, you wrote (in part):

>Using 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that a CdTe instrument should not be used 
>for shipping surveys involving typical power plant radionuclides. There may be 
>other "gotchas" out there as well.  I'd be interested in hearing  how other 
>facilities assure that the instruments used for shipping surveys provide the 
>proper response for the radiation fields being assayed. 
> 
>Bill Lipton 
>

The shipment surveys at the NPP where I worked were required to be performed
with specific instruments.  There were very strict requirements regarding
shipment surveys - partly because of past experience similar to what you
described which resulted in regulatory violations.  I beleive the
instruments we used (energy comp. gm) were chosen specifically because the
geometry of the detector (relatively small) and the energy response
characteristics usually assured an accurate and possibly conservatively high
contact dose rate measurement.
Keith Welch
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Newport News VA
welch@cebaf.gov