Experimental Heat Transfer Spectrum Shift Prevention of a Portable Radiation Spectrometry System

Each radioactive material has its unique energy signature (spectrum). Spectrum shift during measurements is a well know phenomenon which occurs due to environmental temperature changes which affect the electronics, and can lead to misidentification of the radioactive material. We developed a new portable spectroscopy workstation based on Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology, which includes an analog circuit, a Multi Channel Analyzer (MCA), 7 power suppliers and a laptop. The designed system, to which wide range of radioactive detectors can be attached, uses to identify a sampled radioactive material according to its spectrum. In order to prevent the spectrum shift phenomena, both natural and forced convection heat transfer experiments were carried out. Few configurations were tested during these experiments whose results yielded the final electronic packaging configuration of the system as well as the definition of the stabilization time of the system.