Tritium Monitoring Within the Reactor Hall of a DT Fusion Reactor

Monitoring the reactor hall atmosphere of DT-fueled fusion reactors will probably be performed with conventional ion chamber and proportional counter instruments modified as necessary to deal with the background radiation. Background includes external neutron and gamma radiation and internal beta-gamma radiation from the activated atmosphere. Although locating instruments in remote areas of the reactor hall and adding local shielding and electronic compensation may be feasible, placing the instruments in accessible low-background areas outside of the reactor hall and doing remote sampling is preferable and solves most of the radiation problems. The remaining problem of the activated atmosphere may be solved by recently developed instruments in conjunction with the use of semi-permeable membranes currently under development and evaluation.