Radon. Residential vs. workplace buildings
The present project aims to measure the radon concentration in 70 buildings (residential and workplaces) by passive and active methods. Monitoring and identifying additional parameters will allow the development of a model that will increase the accuracy of TCF, as well as the development of the most likely interval associated to AIRC, that could provide the scientific evidence needed to update international regulations such as Council Directive 2013/59/Euratom.
Title: Increasing the accuracy in estimating the annual radon concentration by analyzing the parameters with impact in temporal
variations
PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-0249
Financing authority: Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research and Innovation, UEFISCDI
Activities
1. Documentation, selection of participating buildings and development of a mobile application. This activity will provide documentation and research planning to develop a mobile application in accordance with the purpose of the project. The mobile application will facilitate the mounting of detectors, respectively the dissemination of results to the participants. In this phase, about 70 buildings (35 residential and 35 workplaces) will be selected to install the continuous devices, respectively to mount the passive detectors. The novelty elements offered by this project come with a price, which we will try to minimize as much as possible. As an example, for the compiling of the database with temporal correction factors, 14 detectors will be allocated for
each building (about 1000 detectors overall).
2. Optimization of instruments and methods for experimental evaluation, analysis, and control program. This is an essential step in the implementation of the current project. A batch of integrated detectors will be submitted to proficiency testing and inter-comparison experiments at the Radon Calibrating Laboratory of BfS (Germany) during the project. Continuous measurements of radon concentration, physical parameters (temperature, pressure, humidity) and
CO2 concentration will be performed with the ICA device, developed by our research team within the SmartRadEn project.
3. The adaptation of the existing active devices for long-term continuous measurements of radon in soil gas. Starting from the existing studies in the literature19,23, different configurations will be tried in order to achieve a setup capable of providing continuous measurements of radon in soil gas. The results provided will be periodically verified using ionization chambers (RM-2 from Radon V.O.S., Czech Republic), successfully used for spot measurements of radon in soil and which is part of the laboratory infrastructure.
4. Completing measurements of radon and indoor physical parameters in 70 buildings (residential and workplaces). The integrated measurements will cover one year, in consecutive campaigns. The continuous measurements made with ICA devices will be carried out for the same time. The ability of ICA device to provide monthly average for indoor radon concentrations will allow the computation of monthly correction factors that could not be correctly calculated through the integrated method, due to the uncertainties induced by the sensitivity of the method for a short measurement period.
5. Long-term radon measurements in the indoor air, in soil gas, respectively the exhalation rate, together with the meteorological and environmental parameters. A pilot study will be carried out inside the LiRaCC laboratory, which will aim to simultaneously measure, during one full year, the radon concentration in soil gas, the radon exhalation rate, respectively the radon concentration inside two rooms with different uses.
6. Time series analysis for continuous radon measurements in soil gas to identify cyclical variations and eliminate the background noise induced by these variations and automatically identify anomalies. Starting from the physical, statistical, artificial neuronal networks and hybrid models proposed in the literature, various supervised and unsupervised models will be trained and validated to identify the factors responsible for inducing cyclical evolution, a key aspect for future applications in the field of seismology.
7. Development of a method to define the most likely interval of the estimate AIRC (MLIAIRC). Based on the huge volume of data collected by ICA system, a new method will be developed to delimit an interval for estimating AIRC. The temporal variations of the investigated parameters, as well as the type of building and the user’s behavior will be considered.
8. Assessing the TCF for different type of buildings. The first database with correction factors for radon exposure for the workplace buildings will be achieved, respectively the first in situ comparison between the TCF obtained for the residential and workplace buildings will be made.