Technological yields of sources for radiation processing; Wydajnosci technologiczne zrodel do obrobki radiacyjnej

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zagorski, Z.P. [Institute of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology, Warsaw (Poland)

1993-12-31

The present report is prepared for planners of radiation processing of any material. Calculations are focused on accelerators of electrons, divided into two groups: versatile linacs of energy up to 13 MeV, and accelerators of lower energy, below 2 MeV, of better energy yield but of limited applications. The calculations are connected with the confrontation of the author`s technological expectations during the preparation of the linac project in the late `60s, with the results of 25 years of exploitation of the machine. One has to realize that from the 200 kW input power from the mains, only 5 kW of bent and scanned beam is recovered on the conveyor. That power is only partially used for radiation induced phenomena, because of the demanded homogeneity of the dose, of the mode of packing of the object and its shape, of edges of the scanned area and in the spaces between boxes, and of loses during the idle time due to the tuning of the machine and dosimetric operations. The use of lower energy accelerators may be more economical than that of linacs in case of objects of specific type. At the first stage already, that is of the conversion of electrical power into that of low energy electron beam, the yield is 2-3 times better than in the case of linacs. Attention has been paid to the technological aspects of electron beam conversion into the more penetrating Bremsstrahlung similar to gamma radiation. The advantages of technologies, which make possible a control of the shape of the processed object are stressed. Special attention is focused to the relation between the yield of processing and the ratio between the maximum to the minimum dose in the object under the irradiation. (author). 14 refs, 14 figs.