Short- and long-lived radionuclide particle size measurements in a uranium mine

The radon-222 progeny and long-lived radionuclide measurements were done in a wet underground uranium mine in Saskatchewan, Canada, on Nov. 8-12, 1995. Radon-222 in the mine varied from 2 kBq/m{sup 3} at 90 m below surface to 12 kBq/m{sup 3} in the mining areas, 240 m below surface. Radon-222 progeny activity and potential alpha energy concentration appear affected by the airborne particle number concentration and size distribution. Particle number was up to 200x10{sup 3}/cm{sup 3}. Only an accumulation mode (30-1000 nm) and some bimodal size distributions in this accumulation size range were significant. Diesel particles and combustion particles from burning propane caused a major modal diameter shift to a smaller size range (50-85 nm) compared with previous values (100-200 nm). The high particle number reduced the unattached progeny (0.5-2 nm) to >5%. The nuclei mode (2-30 nm) in this test was nonexistent, and the coarse mode (>1000 nm), except from the drilling areas and on the stopes, was mostly not measurable. Airborne particle total mass and long- lived radionuclide alpha activity concentrations were very low (80- 100 {mu}g/m{sup 3} and 4-5 mBq/m{sup 3}) owing to high ventilation rates. Mass-weighted size distributions were trimodal, with the major mode at the accumulation size region, which accounts for 45-50% of the mass. The coarse model contains the the least mass, about 20%. The size spectra from gross alpha activities were bimodal with major mode in the coarse region (>1000 nm) and a minor accumulation mode in the 50-900 nm size range. These size spectra were different from the {sup 222}Rn progeny that showed a single accumulation mode in the 50- 85 nm size region. The accumulation mode in the long-lived radionuclide size spectrum was not found in previous studies in other uranium mines.