Introduction to Radioactive Contamination

Radioactive Contamination (RaC) can be defined as uncontrolled distribution of radioactive material in a given environment / material.

Radioactive contamination in Metals(Steel/Aluminium/Brass)/foundry industry is due to the accidental incorporation of radioactive material into the scrap metal supply chain system. There are a lot of radioactive sources (industrial and medical), used for industrial gauging applications and in medical systems in cancer hospitals. When these sources are disposed illegally (not following the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board guidelines) it is likely that they come into scrap metal supply chain system, Steel/foundry mills who own smelting furnaces get the scrap metal from this scrap supply chain system, leading to radioactive contamination of the end products made from the ingots processed through these smelting furnaces. Similarly imported scrap also may contain Radioactive Contamination.

It is essential that exports of engineering products, automotive components and other steel components / casting materials made of aluminium,brass iron,steel, alloy to countries such as UK, US and EU are free from Radioactive contamination which has become a serious issue these days for the steel industry.

To address these RaC issues and find a solution to the above problems faced by the steel industry, Nucleonix Systems with vast design experience in Nuclear Instrumentation has developed products to meet the industry’s demand to check / inspect their incoming scrap metal and also their end products for Radioactive Contamination (RaC) in different situations. Nucleonix Systems has carriedout some important case studies of the export-rejected contaminated samples as part of this exercise to offer best possible product designs for Radioactive Contamination (RaC) measurement to the metal (Steel / Aluminium/ Brass) industry.

Nucleonix Systems has emerged as the first company to have contributed significantly & addressed the issues relating to Radioactive Contamination (RaC) in metal industry including steel, in India.

Products developed for the inspection of Radioactive contamination in metal Industry including meet the requirements at different stages of the production cycle. These are useful for inspection of inputs such as scrap metal. semi-finished raw materials & finished products in different forms, such as billets, rods, machined parts, castings, forgings, automotive components etc.,