NORM : The Naturally Occurred Radioactive Materials

NORM (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material) indicates materials coming from human activities that are not evaluated as radioactive but are composed of natural radionuclides resulting above the concentration of the average presented in the terrestrial crust, particularly Uranium, Thorium and related daughter isotopes resulting from natural decaying of parent elements.

While NORM are mostly raw materials, TENORM indicates product or industrial residual most of all from oil and natural gas mining industry and processing of phosphate minerals found in big quantities in the deposits of wholesale fertilizers.

The experts of Radiation and Robotic have gained a conspicuous NORM and TENORM know how, especially on Italian environmental redevelopment such as phosphogypsum landfill in Gela (CL), the storage areas in Priolo (SR), the phosphatic salt mine in Pasquasia (EN), redevelopment of oil tanks and GOSP in Oil Industry.

Application software

The Sum Index

According with the document of the European Commission RP122 (Practical use of the concepts of clearance and exemption, Part II Application of the concepts of exemption and clearance to natural radiation sources), the Sum-Index calculation of the radionuclide mixture must comply the above relation

To simplify the assessment of the conformity of NORM with the values prescribed by the EU-RP122, Radiation and Robotic has created an application for ANDROID that immediately provides the value of the Sum Index, when entering the values of the measured concentrations of the individual radionuclides in Bq/g. The application also returns the results in graphical form and can send the evaluations directly via e-mail.

Where

Ci is the total activity in the structure per unit mass of radionuclide i (Bq/g)
CLi is the clearance level of radionuclide i (Bq/g)
n is the number of radionuclides in the mixture