Reconstruction of A Radiological Release Using Aerosol Sampling

Reconstructing a radiological release using offsite air sampling is considered using measurements from the WIPP site event. Demonstration of the capabilities is shown using the HotSpot code as an example of the approach in general. The results show the empirical steps that could be folded into an iterative approach to back extrapolation of a radiological release from a nuclear facility. It is shown here that the limiting factor in detection is not counting statistics of the activity but rather the statistics for aerosols having small sample population numbers due to the lognormal distribution of particle radii.