Apex Lab Productivity Suite Nuclear Power Plant Option

Features

• Special capabilities package to facilitate the unique needs of Nuclear Power Plant gamma spectroscopy operations
• Seamless integration of gamma spectroscopy results into OpenCDM Chemistry Data Management and OpenEMS Effluent Management packages for storage and analysis
• Samples organized by Units and Sample Points, providing an easy, simple to understand user interface
• Analysis and reporting designed to provide the results you need to ensure regulatory compliance such as:
• Reactor Coolant Gross Activity
• Mean Energy Analysis (E-Bar)
• Dose Equivalence
• Decontamination Factor
• Air Sample Analysis
• Nuclear Power Plant Specific analysis for routine operations such as air sampling and waste processing

Description

Apex provides a comprehensive set of laboratory management services for routine gamma spectroscopy measurements. Nuclear Power users have special requirements which are addressed by the Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) Option package for Apex. The NPP option package includes the following special capabilities:

Seamless Integration
Nuclear Power Plants that deploy CANBERRA’s powerful data management and analysis products such as OpenCDM and OpenEMS will have the instant integration of countroom information automatically. This information flow doesn’t just involve counting results but also plant configuration information, eliminating hours of redundant and error prone data entry. This fast and simple data flow between applications saves time and money.

Unit/Sample Point Tables
Most power plant samples are collected on a regular route or schedule – that is, samples are repetitively collected from the same locations over time. The Apex NPP option includes a Unit/Sample point table that allows the user to pre-enter the sampling locations. The individual locations (sample points) are organized by unit (reactor). Also, each Unit/Sample Point combination can have one or more specific count procedures associated with it. When the Unit/Sample points are selected while defining a sample, only those associated procedures are shown to the operator – simplifying the user interface and reducing the possibility of error.

Nuclear Power Plant Analysis and Reporting
Production counting facilities such as Nuclear Power Plants have a number of specialized analysis and reporting requirements that help ensure compliance with regulations and technical specifications. Apex was designed with these requirements in mind. This countroom productivity suite takes the world class Genie analysis routines and extends them to provide a number of powerful features.

Reactor Coolant Gross Activity Analysis and Report
Calculation of gross reactor coolant activity is routinely needed to determine compliance with plant technical specifications. With APEX it’s just another example of how standard analysis routines have been extended to provide special Nuclear Power Plant specific features easy-to-use.

The user can select to use one, two or three spectra representing the following combinations:

• Non-degassed sample
• Degassed liquid and stripped Gas samples
• Stripped gas, filter and filtrate samples

The sum of the activities are calculated and reported and compared to the last X/E-Bar result for the appropriate reactor unit.

Mean Energy Analysis (E-Bar)
The mean energy analysis feature takes sample data, allows interactive selection of activities, calculates total gamma and total sample activity, and determines E-Bar. With the flexibility of APEX, the user can use site-specific parameters to convert the mean energy calculated to an RCS gross activity limit.

Dose Equivalence Report
These reports are typically constructed for Dose Equivalent Iodine (DEI) and Dose Equivalent Xenon (DEX), but can be constructed for any nuclide. The report normalizes the activity of the nuclides of the specific element (e.g. iodine) so the dose received from all isotopes of that element are related to a specific isotope (e.g. ¹³¹I).

Decontamination Factor Report
This report determines how well a cleanup system is working. The report calculates the effectiveness of cleanup by radio-isotope by comparing the activities of the inlet sample(s) and outlet sample(s). The following calculation is done for each isotope:
      DF=(inlet activity)/(outlet activity)
The software allows for one or two inlet samples and one or two outlet samples.

Air Sample Analysis
This feature calculates the Derived Air Concentration (DAC) for a number of samples. Results are reported by gaseous, radioiodine and particulate components. The user can also enter the ³H activity manually to include in the results. Report output includes nuclide activities, DAC values, DAC fractions and CEDE.

Apex is a trademark of CANBERRA Industries, Inc.