Variations in the gross alpha and beta activity in surface waters at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston (UK)

Burnett, J.L., Croudace, I.W. and Warwick, P.E. (2011) Variations in the gross alpha and beta activity in surface waters at the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston (UK). Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, 289 (2), 389-394. (doi:10.1007/s10967-011-1094-y).

Abstract

Statistical analysis has been performed on the
gross alpha- and beta-activity measurements of surface
waters collected at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at
Aldermaston (UK) during the period January 2002–September
2005. The results have been found to follow a
lognormal distribution and this has important applications
when considering gross activity exemption thresholds. This
implies that the gross activity is the multiplicative product
of many small independent factors, such as meteorology,
flow conditions and site operations. The influence of
meteorological parameters has been investigated using
linear regression, and some correlation has been identified
between gross beta-activity and parameters indicative of
fine weather. Variations in gross activity have been considered
on monthly, weekly and daily timescales and
characterised using the geometric mean and geometric
standard deviation in accordance with the properties of the
lognormal probability density function.

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Contributors

Author: P.E. Warwick

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