Intercomparison exercise of easy-to-measure and non-volatile difficult-to-measure analysis in homogenised high activity steel

Intercomparison exercises (IE) are a way for laboratories to test their analytical performance. In case of difficult-to-measure (DTM) radionuclide analysis, participation in IEs are important due to the lack of reference materials. This paper reports the results from an IE focusing on non-volatile DTM analysis in homogenised high activity steel. The IE was carried out according to the ISO 13528 standard, in which the performances are assessed using z score. The z scores were generally acceptable. The experimental results were compared with activation calculation results showing wide range of compatibility.