MONTE CARLO FORECAST FOR 241AM/BE DSRS MANAGEMENT OPTIMIZATION IN CAMEROON

The present research provided an optimal option for Disused Sealed Radioactive Sources (DSRS) management based on Monte Carlo simulation. The objective was to design the appropriate means for radioactive waste conditioning to avoid material and economic losses based on trials during the sources' dismantling and to find the best optimizing DSRS geometry package. The Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System (PHITS) was used to design waste containers with appropriate DSRS to get the ALARA principle of dose limitation in the boundary of the waste package. The investigated radioactive waste was made of several disused 241Am/Be neutron sources previously used in well-logging and petroleum exploration in the Gulf of Guinea (CAMEROON). From the obtained result, disk and cylinder were found to be the most appropriate geometries while the parallelepiped geometry was the worst case. The obtained results were stored for the upcoming IAEA expert mission to dismantle and store the DSRS in Cameroon.