Safety distance for preventing hot particle ignition of building insulation materials

Trajectories of flying hot particles were predicted in this work, and the temperatures during the movement were also calculated. Once the particle tem- perature decreased to the critical temperature for a hot particle to ignite building insulation materials, which was predicted by hot-spot ignition theory, the distance particle traveled was determined as the minimum safety distance for preventing the ignition of building insulation materials by hot particles. The results showed that for sphere aluminum particles with the same initial velocities and diameters, the horizontal and vertical distances traveled by particles with higher initial tem- peratures were higher. Smaller particles traveled farther when other conditions were the same. The critical temperature for an aluminum particle to ignite rigid polyurethane foam increased rapidly with the decrease of particle diameter. The horizontal and vertical safety distances were closely related to the initial temper- ature, diameter and initial velocity of particles. These results could help update the safety provision of firework display.

Gamma Spectrometry of Inhomogeneous Samples Using Peak-Ratio Method

In gamma spectrometry of voluminous samples, inhomogeneous distribution of radioactivity caused by the presence of hot particles can create significant Bias in the results of activity determinations. We developed a novel method to reduce this Bias using the gamma-peak ratio. We show that the peak area ratio of two gamma peaks of different energies, emitted by the same radionuclide, is a sensitive measure of emitting source location and thus the inhomogeneity. A new calibration formula was then derived for true gamma efficiency pi as a function of efficiency ratio pi/pj of two peaks. This approach was verified by Monte Carlo simulations for a sample of 1-L volume containing from 1 up to 2048 of hot particles randomly distributed in a soil matrix. A 152Eu radionuclide was selected for calculations and we used various combinations of two gamma spectral peaks selected from three gamma energies of 121.8, 344.3, and 1408.0 keV. This new method is shown to reduce the Bias range and Bias standard deviation by several times when compared with the traditional homogeneous calibration applied to measuring hot particles. The method is independent of the number, location, and distribution of hot particles in the samples, and can be applied to a mixture of radionuclides. It complements our previous calibration model based on the peak-to-total ratio.