Babcock offers a comprehensive range of radiation detection,
monitoring and measurement systems to customers in nuclear,
defence, civil, environmental and industrial sectors. The largest
customer base is the nuclear sector including power plants, fuel
manufacturing and reprocessing plants, waste storage and treatment
facilities, decommissioning projects and governmental
establishments worldwide.
Babcock offers a range of standard, off-the shelf instruments or
can create custom designed bespoke, stand alone or plant integrated
systems. Alternatively, there is the option of deploying contract
measurement or other services using Babcock systems and specially
trained Babcock staff to meet short term or intermittent
demand.
The Products are described at the bottom of this page.
Key Applications:
Decommissioning
With over 40 years experience in decommissioning, Babcock has
developed a range of instrumentation and services that provide the
specific measurement and characterisation data needed at each of
the key stages in the nuclear process. Innovative and operationally
proven technologies are used successfully within alpha, beta and
gamma active plants worldwide.
Waste Management
Babcock has a unique insight into the problems posed by the
handling, treatment, characterisation, transport and disposal of
radioactive wastes of all activities to meet regulatory
requirements. Our innovative measurement and characterisation
technologies are successfully installed in major nuclear facilities
throughout the world, optimising waste classification in every
category to ensure the safest and most cost-effective routes are
identified. From high level down to unrestricted release, Babcock
waste assay instrumentation and systems provide fast, accurate,
analysis with a high integrity of data using proven alpha, beta,
gamma and neutron based measurement techniques..
Plant Operations
The safe and cost-efficient operation of many major international
nuclear facilities depends upon customised process monitoring
systems that have been designed, installed and commissioned by
Babcock. From initial problem definition through to on-going
services and technical support, Babcock has the expertise,
operational experience and the resources to create a process
monitoring or plant control solution that matches your individual
needs.
Fuel Management
Babcock has acquired a wealth of experience in the monitoring of
spent fuels to provide fissile content enrichment, cooling time and
burn up data. Fuel monitoring systems designed and built by Babcock
have been successfully operated by major fuel reprocessing plants
over many years, providing accurate measurements day after day on a
24-hour basis.
This operationally proven technology has been developed further
with the introduction of our Spent Fuel Monitoring Service. This is
based on High Resolution Gamma Spectroscopy within a modular
configuration that easily adapts to wet or dry conditions for all
commercial uranium oxide fuels.
Safeguards
Babcock offers a range of standard systems that fully satisfy
Safeguards as they apply throughout the global nuclear sector.
Instrumentation that uses proven technologies to monitor the
distribution of radioactive materials, both locally and on-line
Our product design and systems engineering capability, developed
over 40 years, has given us a unique insight into the problems
faced by operators in meeting Accountancy and Safeguards
requirements while optimising plant efficiency.
The FissTrack Plutonium Inventory Measurement System for
example, provides total neutron counting to measure and track the
distribution of total plutonium content throughout the plant. The
IAEA takes branch outputs from this system to source the raw data
they require for Safeguards purposes.Key Standard Products.
DrumScan® family
The DrumScan® range encompasses modular gamma based waste assay
systems which can assay both beta / gamma and Pu and U contaminated
wastes. The systems accommodate a wide range of container sizes
from packets up to 1m3 containers. The measurement range varies
from beta/gamma intermediate level waste categories (> 12 GBq/te
in the UK) down to Free Release. (<0.4 Bq/g in the UK). The
DrumScan® LRGS Alpha system also delivers reliable, accurate,
inexpensive and fast measurements of alpha LLW in bags. (LoD
<<0.1GBq/te)
TRU D® Family
The TRU D® range encompasses neutron based waste assay systems for
the assay of TRU / PCM contaminated wastes or products. The systems
accommodate a wide range of container sizes from packets up to 200l
drums and optionally larger sizes. The measurement range varies
from 1mg 240Pu to several hundreds of grams. The TRU D® Drum
monitor can be used to segregate TRU/PCM waste from LLW.
RadScan® 4pi Gamma Imaging system
RadScan® remotely locates and characterises gamma hotspots with
exceptional accuracy in a wide variety of environments, including
building surfaces, cells, in or on glove boxes and process vessels.
An image of the radiation distribution showing the counts and
selected radio-isotopes is overlaid onto a video image.
CIDAS®
With over 50 years experience, Babcock is now a world-leading
provider of criticality incident detection and alarm systems which
are installed in plants handling fissile material. The modular
design based on three rings of gamma detectors adapts to large or
small facilities. The system is highly reliable and meets European
and US standards.
Fisstrack® Plutonium Inventory Measurement System PIMS is an
installed plant system, which provides a continuous measurement of
the total Pu content of individual vessels, major process zones and
total plant.
DISPIM® is a modular, mobile, re-configurable neutron assay system
for a wide range of object sizes and shapes: glove boxes, crates,
drums, vessels, pipes, vehicles, etc. It measures the mass and 3D
distribution of plutonium within an item.
IonSens® monitors are high sensitivity alpha detection systems
that can rapidly measure alpha contamination on metal waste having
complex shapes, hidden or inaccessible surfaces . They provide
confirmation that waste items are either alpha contaminated or
below the UK /European clearance limits.
Key customers:
Sellafield Ltd
LLWR Ltd
British Energy
Magnox
Urenco
Westinghouse
DOE (US)
JNFL
IAEA