Abstract:
Pneumatic Transfer System (PTS) is an auxiliary system of Ghana Research
Reactor -1 (GHARR-1) to transfer sample capsule in and out of the reactor
irradiation sites. The PTS controller unit design and construction was carried out
because the transfer system was not designed to operate in cyclic Neutron
Activation Analysis (NAA) and as a result could not determine radionuclides
whose half-lives are equal or less than 100 seconds. In addition, most of the
components used to design the present one-short conventional NAA controller
unit are outmoded and out of market, posing threat to future maintenance. To
address these situations, a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) has been used to
design and construct a control unit to facilitate a cyclic neutron activation analysis
for the PTS. The design has been simulated successfully using a LOGO Soft
Comfort software, version 8. Function block diagram programming language was
used. The constructed control unit has been tested experimentally using 220 AC
volts electric bulbs to represent solenoid valves. The results show that the sample-
IN and sample-OUT bulbs come ON and go OFF to represent the solenoid valves’
opening and closing for sample transfer. The results obtained from the study
would eliminate the difficulty of getting up-to-date components to replace the
outmoded ones in the PTS control. The study has shown that the computer based
PLC controller unit for PTS is capable of facilitating both cyclic and conventional
NAA application for GHARR-1 and especially, the Miniature Neutron Source
Reactors
