Tesis
SIMULACIÓN DE LA DISPERSIÓN DE RADIONÚCLIDOS EN EL VALLE DE CHIHUAHUA
Autor
LUIS MIGUEL RODRIGUEZ VAZQUEZ
Institución
Resumen
Air quality in a city with an important industrial and human
development, is taking more and more relevance as a part of a
background of sustainable development. The space and time
distribution of radioactive particles (containing elements like 238U,
232Th, 40K, 7Be and 137Cs) has being studied in Chihuahua City,
Mexico, by means of several sampling campaigns during the years of
2003, 2005 and 2007. In order to assess the behavior of the model in
meteorological terms as much as in the isotope transport the data
from March 6th to 8th and from April 11th to 13th 2007 have been
analyzed. A Multiscale Model denominated MCCM has implemented
along with Erosion Model named WEPS (Wind Erosion Prediction
System). WEPS is a process-based, continuous, daily time-step model
that simulates weather, field conditions, and erosion while MCCM is
based on the Fifth Generation Mesoscale Model MM5.The soil samples
collected during the period were analyzed by means of gamma
spectrometry using a hyper pure germanium detector. The obtained
results were processed using SURFER, which is an outline and threedimensional
surface plotting software, in order to establish the space
distribution of the radionuclide in the studied area. The results
showed similarities between 137Cs and 7Be, and between 238U, 232Th
and 40K remains a significant relationship in the distribution of natural
radionuclide in the study area as well as between the cesium and
beryllium. These results were reproduced by means of the MCCM, to
which the isotopes of interest were incorporated as new variables.
The obtained results match with those observed experimentally in
2007 when they were analyzed with visualization software. As later
objectives to this work the analysis of the periods 2003 and 2005 will
be added, in order to confirm the good performance of the model and
carry out predictive calculations about the transport and distribution
of the interest elements according to the weather conditions in the
zone during the analysis periods.