AUTOMATED PARTICULATE SAMPLER FOR COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY VERIFICATION (THE DOE RADIONUCLIDE AEROSOL SAMPLER ANALYZER)/

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) [1] was recently signed by Pr esident Clinton and is intended to eliminate all nuclear weapons testi ng. One way in which the treaty seeks to accomplish this is by the est ablishment of The International Monitoring System. As stated in the la test Working Papers of the Draft CTBT, ''The International Monitoring System shall comprise facilities for seismological monitoring, radionu clide monitoring including certified laboratories, hydroacoustic monit oring, infrasound monitoring, and respective means of communication, a nd shall be supported by the International Data Centre of the Technica l Secretariat''. Radionuclide monitoring consists of both radionuclide s associated with particulates and relevant noble gases. This type of monitoring is quite valuable since indications of a nuclear test in th e form of radioactive particulate or radioactive noble gases may be de tected at great distances from the detonation site. The system present ed here is concerned only with radioactive particulate monitoring and is described as an automated sampler/analyzer which has been developed for the Department of Energy (DOE) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).