DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW ANALYSIS TOOL FOR EVALUATING AND CORRECTING FOR WEATHER CONDITIONS THAT CONSTRAIN RADIATION PORTAL MONITOR PERFORMANCE*

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) developed the Adaptable, Multiplatform, Real-Time Analysis Package (AMRAP) for the continuous measurement of environmental radionuclide decay. AMRAP is a completely open source visualization and analysis package capable of combining a variety of data streams into an array of real-time plots. Once acquired, data streams are analyzed to store static images and extract data based on previously defined thresholds. AMRAP is currently used at ORNL to combine data streams from an Ortec Detective high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector, a TSA Systems radiation portal monitor (RPM), and an Orion weather station. The combined data are used to study the rain-induced increase in RPM background radiation levels. RPMs experience an increase in background radiation during precipitation due to the deposition of atmospheric radionuclides on the ground. Using AMRAP results in a real-time analysis workstation specifically dedicated to the study of RPM background radiation levels. By means of an editable library of common inputs, AMRAP is adaptable to remote monitoring applications that would benefit from the real-time visualization and analysis of radiation measurements.