API PUBL 7102:1997

1.2 PROJECT OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE The objectives of the project are to develop and substantiate, by laboratory and field measurements, correlations between radium contamination in sludges and scales in oil and gas production equipment and gamma radiation measurements made at the outside surface of the equipment. Different detector configurations are considered. The sensitivity of the detectors and the variability of the correlations from laboratory and field data are also analyzed. The correlations are developed to aid in characterizing NORM from simple field measurements in piping and equipment. In developing the correlations three different laboratory equipment configurations were used: a flat plate to represent large equipment, a 20 cm diameter pipe, and 5 cm diameter tubing. Three wall thicknesses and up to 15 NORM thicknesses were used in the laboratory experiments. In addition three types of NORM were used: high density (2.8 g/cm3) high barium content scale in tubing, intermediate density (1.7 g/cm3), high barium content powdered scale and sludge, and low density (1.4 g/cm3), low barium uranium mill tailings.