[en] Various nuclear techniques have led to opportunities to enhance quality of life through services offered by ionizing radiation facilities (IRFs). National nuclear institutions, universities, medical centres, and private companies have established and used IRFs not only for research and development purposes but also for the provision of commercial services and goods. This publication provides guidance for organizations and institutions working on IRF projects to enable them to undertake them in a well-organized manner. It includes considerations for a feasibility study, provides detailed methodologies on how to assess the status of the necessary infrastructure, and aims to help Member States as well as their respective organizations to understand their commitments and obligations associated with an IRF project. It is intended to be used by managers, staff, decision makers at the national level and other stakeholders at institutions that are seeking or supporting the establishment of an IRF.

[en] Full text: The proposed objectives for the third year were: - To continue testing some dyes as new oil tracers for short breakthrough times in combination with tritiated water and ammonium thiocyanate injections for multitrace studies; - To perform more experiences for core flushing analysis in order to completely master this new technique; - To develop a friendly version of the streamline simulation software. Activities in the third year. The activities during the third year of the research contract are divided in three areas: testing new tracers, improving interpretation software and exploring new applications. The main results are exposed below. Tracers in interwell studies. Up to the present more than 160 injections were carried out in different Argentinean oil fields. Since the last Coordination Meeting up to the presents, 50 injections were performed in 16 oil fields belonging to 6 companies. Most of them (31) involved tritiated water as tracer, in 12 cases ammonium thiocyanate was used, 6 times uranine was used and there were one injection of butanol. The behaviour of ammonium thiocyanate has probed to be very good and, for this reason, this tracer became an excellent complement for tritiated water in all those situations in which two tracers are needed. Some experiments were also performed using uranine as tracer for short breakthrough times and the conclusion was that its behaviour was excellent even for relatively long sampling time. The good results got using a dye as a water tracer open a new field to be investigated. As a matter of fact, uranine is cheap, easy to inject because the involved volumes are rather small (around 100 L of solution) and samples are measured by means of simple equipment. Interpretation software. Comahue University finished the developing of PORO, a well response simulator based of streamlines whose main characteristics are described bellow. The first thing to do is to enter the coordinates of the pattern under study in the work space shown in the screen or at least to introduce the ones for an injection and a production wells. The respective flow rates have also to be entered. Additionally, the software gives possibility of define and include faults. Other parameters to be incorporated are the estimated dispersivity, the thickness of the layer, its porosity and the amount of tracer injected. Once all this information was entered, PORO calculates the streamlines and the simulated response of the well. PORO was distributed by the Agency to all CRP participant countries. (author)

[en] Since 2005, the Tunisian National Centre for Nuclear Science and Technology (CNSTN) has been using gamma radiation technology to conserve cultural heritage objects from different national museums. Thanks to a multidisciplinary team including physicists, biologists and chemists, the efforts were focused on: — Carrying out research in order to study materials and develop best practices adapted to the radiation treatment of the objects and collections: determination of irradiation dose, dose rate and homogeneity ratio and establishment of dose cartography of products. — Carrying out the necessary treatments for insect eradication and disinfestation of tapestries and other objects made of organic materials such as wood or leather. — Informing professionals and the general public of the new techniques developed for conservation of cultural heritage.

[en] Radiotracer applications for inter-well communication studies were carried out in two oilfields in Pakistan. The work being reported is for the 4th year (starting from 1st December 2007) of the CRP. The work done in the oilfield-1 was continuation of previous tracer experiment while a new tracer injection was conducted in oilfield-2. The study area consists of two oilfields (oilfield-1 and oilfield-2). The following work plan was agreed between PINSTECH and the IAEA to be carried out during the 4th year under the 'Research Contract PAK-12949'. CRP Work Plan for the 4th Year: - Continuation of sampling of wells from existing oilfield for subsequent analyses to complete the project work; - Continuation of sampling and analysis of tracer recently injected in a new oilfield; - Collection of the injection and production data of wells from both oilfields; - To carry out Tracer Recovery Analysis, Residence Time Distribution (RTD) Analysis, Estimation of Swept Volume, Contribution of injected water to producers, from available injection/production and tracer data; - Data interpretation and preparation of final report of the project.

[en] The consolidation of porous artefacts is a second application of ionizing radiation in the field of cultural heritage preservation. It is derived from studies dating from the 1960s in which the aim was to improve the mechanical properties of porous material — wood and concrete in particular. The method uses vacuum impregnation with a liquid resin followed by polymerization under gamma irradiation, called radiation curing. Even if it is less commonly used than disinfestation, this method is useful because it fully consolidates porous parts of the artefact. After the item has been impregnated, the resin filling the micro-pores is polymerized (cured, i.e. solidified) by radiation. This technique is called ‘densification’ (or the ‘Nucléart process’) in opposition to traditional consolidation techniques that use a solvent to convey the resin into the material, which only forms a film of solid resin after the solvent has evaporated. The resin traditionally used for wood is a styrene unsaturated polyester formulation. The mechanical properties of artefacts are indubitably much better after densification than after any other conventional form of consolidation. The appearance of the object remains unchanged, or at least any changes that do occur are no greater than those that can be observed with any other type of impregnation. However, it is obvious that the material and its physicochemical properties have been transformed (enhanced in density and in mechanical strength) and that these changes are irreversible. That is why this practice is deliberately limited to justified cases in which the mechanical properties must be greatly reinforced. In the case of polychrome wood, preliminary tests must be carried out to determine whether or not there is any interaction (swelling, dissolution) between the liquid resin and the polychrome layers on the artefact.

[en] The final objective of the work done during the last year of the CRP is to validate several models and/or software packages for the interpretation of tracer experiments in oil and geothermal fields. The interpretation of tracer experiments in such systems is much more complex that those obtained in industrial devices because oil and geothermal field are non boundary systems, little information about the internal structure is available, the curves are often incomplete, operating parameters change during the experiment and finally the percentage of tracer recovery is very low. In order to simplify the approach, the inter-comparison of the software packages has been done on the experimental data obtained previously at laboratory scale (see second CRP meeting). New perspectives for software developments have been also proposed.

[en] Historical objects are exposed to a number of adverse factors: chemical (corrosion and chemical reactions of various types), physical (atmospheric agents, e.g. changes in humidity, temperature), mechanical (vibration, shock, impact, etc.) and, perhaps the most dangerous, biological agents. Biological degradation of historical objects is done by both the smallest and simplest organisms (bacteria, fungi, moulds) and more complex organisms (mostly insects). Destruction can also be caused by birds and mammals (particularly rodents), but these phenomena are rather marginal and much easier to control. The physical factors which can be used to combat pests in historical objects include temperature, ultrasound, ultraviolet radiation and ionizing radiation (X ray, gamma, EB). Radiation techniques are ideal for situations when there is a need to disinfect a very large number of objects. Ionizing radiation may be the only method of conservation that ensures control of bacteria and mould contamination in a short time. Other advantages of gamma radiation are its high penetration and the fact that its effectiveness does not depend on the shape and structure of the material, which allows disinfection of objects with large dimensions and complex shapes.

[en] Background on FBR. Fractured Basement Reservoir is uncommon oil reservoir where hydrocarbone storage and conductivity are provided by fracture system which is fault oriented. The fractures can be classified by macrofracture developing close to the fault with high porosity and being filled with clay or minerals, microfracture of much smaller porosity developing in the solid rock. The average porosity of fractured reservoir is rather small, about 2-3% while the permeability distributed in relative wide range. Fracture system divides reservoir into compartments and creates high heterogeneity of permeability and porosity distribution. Flow in FBR is unpredictable. Water is injected in the deeper part of reservoir to maintain the reservoir pressure and replace the oil toward production zone at the upper part. Combining all available geology data and seismic data the reservoir model and flow model are not completed. Considering all these uncertainties, it is indispensable to develop a new concept to work on oil production in FBR and other applied techniques including tracer need to comply with.

[en] Research of tracer technique development in geothermal and oil field in Indonesia was made between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Center for the Application of Isotopes and Radiation Technology, National Nuclear Energy Agency under the research contract No.12947/RO. The objective of the research is to validate and verify tracer techniques application in geothermal and oil field in Indonesia and to support exploitation stage for steam field management and effectiveness of re-injection wells. Tracer is an alternative technology to determine interconnection of wells in geothermal and oil field concerning to steam and oil field management. Tracer return in production wells can be used to calculate optimization of water re-injection and various useful parameters including swept volume between well pair. Some of radiotracer namely tritium, ¹²⁵I, ¹³¹I and ⁶⁰Co can be considered as suitable tracer in reservoir system. The last year research report contains the final result of tritium tracer test monitoring in Lahendong geothermal field and result of 125I tracer test in Dieng Geothermal field.

[en] In 2003, the Peace Palace Library, which holds a unique homogeneous international law collection and serves the International Court of Justice and The Hague Academy of International Law, had the opportunity to construct a new environment for its reading room, offices and storage in stacks. The pre-2003 storage spaces were spread out over the entire complex, which was not practical from the point of view of logistics. There were stacks, mainly containing material that was used less often, such as government documents, under the central entrance of the Peace Palace itself, a space that was not built for archival storage or to hold a library collection. This room was too humid, as it was next to a ditch, and did not have proper air-conditioning. As a result, the stack area was too hot and moisture appeared on the walls. No other depots in the library met the requirement for a repository (some of them flooded frequently). Moreover, the stacks were unhealthy and dusty. Part of the contaminated collection is shown.