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Natolx OP t1_j81wfiq wrote

Reply to comment by Redwoo in Can the Radiation from a Sample of Depleted Uranium Sterilize? by Natolx

>The dose rate seems to be very high for DU gamma radiation. I calculated 400nSv/h using 0.7 Sv/Gy on contact for 0.2 w/o U235 for newly depleted material. The dose rate will increase a bit as daughter products accumulate over thousands of years, but that isn’t particularly relevant.

This is just the default calculation of cpm to microsieverts by my radiation counter (GM500) so I suppose it could be that the calculation is wrong.

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Pedroarak t1_j82c6o1 wrote

The gm500 has two tubes right? I don't know how it chooses which one to use (probably changes after it gets saturated), but if the standart tube is something like a sbm-20 or j305 it probably picks up quite a bit of beta that goes through the ampoule, and the cpm to usv is most likely calibrated with the energy of cesium, so i think the actual doserate is lower that what it shows

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Natolx OP t1_j82dcj0 wrote

>The gm500 has two tubes right? I don't know how it chooses which one to use (probably changes after it gets saturated), but if the standart tube is something like a sbm-20 or j305 it probably picks up quite a bit of beta that goes through the ampoule, and the cpm to usv is most likely calibrated with the energy of cesium, so i think the actual doserate is lower that what it shows

I placed whichever tube was more sensitive over the sample (one of them barely detected anything). Good call on the calibration.

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