Measurement of radon emanation in construction materials

Due to the new proposed Israeli approach for radioactivity in construction materials (IS 5098) issued in 2007, the radon emanation of a construction material, a brick in the form of a box (a rectangular parallelepiped), should be checked when its four faces are insulated in order to achieve the same simulation effect when a concrete block is embedded into a wall. A physical model was developed in order to measure the insulation level (quality) of a building product (bulk concrete, building block, tiles, etc.) when its four sides are insulated by various materials. Under the experimental conditions it was found that the insulation level for bulk concrete was 99.5 ± 0.04% which is in good agreement with the requirement of the new Israeli Standard IS 5098. The influence of aging of concrete materials on radon emanation and the emanation ratio, deduced from measurements of insulated and non-insulated materials, was investigated.