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by dundercoder
234 days ago
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Radiation isn’t contained in the water as photons, but the coolant itself becomes radioactive through neutron activation. Even with intact fuel rods, oxygen in the water turns into N-16 with a half-life of about seven seconds, and trace metals like nickel and cobalt form isotopes such as Co-58 and Co-60. These emit strong gamma radiation while the reactor operates. The primary coolant is not simply pure water; it contains boric acid, lithium hydroxide, dissolved hydrogen, and trace corrosion products like iron, nickel, cobalt, and chromium. Under power level neutron flux, some of these elements become short- or medium-lived radionuclides. Once removed from the core, most of the activity decays within minutes, but during operation the water is measurably radioactive. An eight-ounce sample taken from the loop at power would carry roughly the dose of a chest X-ray before it decayed away, due to these activated isotopes rather than residual photons [EPRI PWR Primary Water Chemistry Guidelines; NUREG-1437][0]. I was on site for the mid cycle outage of three mile island unit 1 around 2005. I did the data sync and transfer for the steam generator inspection, but got tutored by some old PHDs during the down time. [0] https://downloads.regulations.gov/NRC-2020-0101-0142/content... |
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