Use of quantitative digital autoradiography technique to investigate the chlorine-36-labelled radiotracer transport in concrete

Abstract This work presents the capability of digital autoradiography, a non-destructive technique, to improve diffusion parameters determination by mean of high resolution radionuclide mapping. The results show a good agreement between Cl-36 diffusion profiles acquired by digital autoradiography compared to the classic protocol based onto multi-step-abrasive-surface-peeling procedure. The digital autoradiography technique has been successfully used to localize and quantify Cl-36-labelled radiotracer on the surface of a concrete sample and into the contaminated depth. This study shows how optimized in-diffusion investigations can be performed in only 100 days to assess the diffusion parameters of Cl-36 in a low diffusive concrete sample, prepared from a composite cement (CEM V/A), while a through-diffusion experiment would take several years to reach diffusion steady state for tritiated water, considered as the reference tracer, and consequently, to allow the estimation of the diffusion parameters for Cl-36.