IEC TR 62971:2015

Radiation instrumentation - Radiation sources used in illicit trafficking detection standards - Guidance and recommendations

IEC TR 62971:2015(E) provides guidance and recommendations regarding the availability and use of radiation sources that are needed when testing and evaluating instruments used for the detection of illicit trafficking of radioactive material. Guidance includes the use of surrogate or replacement radioactive materials that could be more easily obtained. The object of this Technical Report is to provide guidance to instrument manufacturers, users, and testing organisations as to the selection and possible use of radiation sources, source surrogates and source simulation tools when testing and evaluating an instrument's ability to detect and identify illicit trafficking of radioactive material.

General Information

• Status: Published
• Publication Date: 21-Oct-2015
• ICS: 01 - GENERALITIES. TERMINOLOGY. STANDARDIZATION. DOCUMENTATION
• ICS: 13.280 - Radiation protection
• Technical Committee: SC 45B - Radiation protection instrumentation
• Current Stage: PPUB - Publication issued
• Start Date: 31-Dec-2015
• Completion Date: 22-Oct-2015

Standards Content (Sample)

IEC TR 62971 ®
Edition 1.0 2015-10
TECHNICAL
REPORT
colour
inside
Radiation instrumentation – Radiation sources used in illicit trafficking detection
standards – Guidance and recommendations
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IEC TR 62971 ®
Edition 1.0 2015-10
TECHNICAL
REPORT
colour
inside
Radiation instrumentation – Radiation sources used in illicit trafficking detection

standards – Guidance and recommendations

INTERNATIONAL
ELECTROTECHNICAL
COMMISSION
ICS 13.280 ISBN 978-2-8322-2958-3

– 2 – IEC TR 62971:2015 © IEC 2015
CONTENTS
FOREWORD . 3
1 Scope . 5
2 Normative references . 5
3 Terms and definitions, abbreviations and symbols . 5
3.1 Terms and definitions . 5
3.2 Abbreviations and symbols . 5
4 Background . 6
4.1 List of relevant standards . 6
4.2 Source suppliers . 6
4.3 Nuclear Material (NM) sources and materials of interest . 6
4.4 Neutron sources . 7
4.5 Surrogate materials and efforts . 7
4.5.1 Materials . 7
4.5.2 Efforts . 8
4.5.3 Simulated gamma spectra versus real spectra . 9
4.5.4 Use of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) . 9
5 General requirements . 10
5.1 NM . 10
5.2 Metals or oxides. 11
5.3 Spheres or plates . 11
5.4 Source encapsulation. 11
Bibliography . 12

– 241
Figure 1 Am-Be energy distribution . 8
Figure 2 – Low resolution RGPu (blue trace) and WGPu spectra comparison . 11

Table 1 – IEC NM . 10

INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION
____________
RADIATION INSTRUMENTATION –
RADIATION SOURCES USED IN ILLICIT
TRAFFICKING DETECTION STANDARDS –
GUIDANCE AND RECOMMENDATIONS
FOREWORD
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example "state of the art".
IEC TR 62971, which is a technical report, has been prepared by subcommittee 45B:
Radiation protection instrumentation, of IEC technical committee 45: Nuclear instrumentation.

– 4 – IEC TR 62971:2015 © IEC 2015
The text of this technical report is based on the following documents:
Enquiry draft Report on voting
45B/817/DTR 45B/821/RVC
Full information on the voting for the approval of this technical report can be found in the
report on voting indicated in the above table.
This publication has been drafted in accordance with the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.
The committee has decided that the contents of this publication will remain unchanged until
the stability date indicated on the IEC website under "http://webstore.iec.ch" in the data
related to the specific publication. At this date, the publication will be
• reconfirmed,
• withdrawn,
• replaced by a revised edition, or
• amended.
A bilingual version of this publication may be issued at a later date.

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RADIATION INSTRUMENTATION –
RADIATION SOURCES USED IN ILLICIT
TRAFFICKING DETECTION STANDARDS –
GUIDANCE AND RECOMMENDATIONS
1 Scope
This Technical Report (TR) provides guidance and recommendations regarding the availability
and use of radiation sources that are needed when testing and evaluating instruments used
for the detection of illicit trafficking of radioactive material. The relevant standards are listed in
4.1. Guidance includes the use of surrogate or replacement radioactive materials that could
be more easily obtained.
The object of this Technical Report is to provide guidance to instrument manufacturers, users,
and testing organisations as to the selection and possible use of radiation sources, source
surrogates and source simulation tools when testing and evaluating an instrument’s ability to
detect and identify illicit trafficking of radioactive material.
2 Normative references
The following documents, in whole or in part, are normatively referenced in this document and
are indispensable for its application. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any
amendments) applies.
IEC 60050-395, International Electrotechnical Vocabulary – Part 395: Nuclear
instrumentation: Physical phenomena, basic concepts, instruments, systems, equipment and
detectors
3 Terms and definitions, abbreviations and symbols
3.1 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions, as well as those given
in IEC 60050-395 apply.
3.1.1
nuclear material
plutonium, except that with isotopic concentration exceeding 80 % in plutonium-238; uranium-
233; uranium enriched in the isotope 235 or 233; uranium containing the mixture of isotopes
as occurring in nature other than in the form of ore or ore-residue; any material containing one
or more of the foregoing
Note 1 to entry: Additional details regarding source composition can be found in 4.3.
[SOURCE: IAEA-TECDOC-1311-September 2002]
3.2 Abbreviations and symbols
DD Deuterium-Deuterium
DU Depleted Uranium
HEU Highly Enriched Uranium
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency

– 6 – IEC TR 62971:2015 © IEC 2015
NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology
NORM Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material
Np Neptunium
PMMA Poly methyl methacrylate
Pu Plutonium
RGPu Reactor Grade Plutonium
NM Nuclear Material
WGPu Weapons Grade Plutonium
4 Background
4.1 List of relevant standards
The following standards are currently relevant to this Technical Report. Each standard
contains requirements for photon and neutron radiation emitting sources including those
requirements for NM.
– IEC 62244, Radiation protection instrumentation – Installed radiation monitors for the
detection of radioactive and special nuclear
...