nikov, V. I. Boiko, I. V. Sh:tm:min, and O. V. Andreev UDC 504.054.001.5;504.064The possibility of using pulsed microwave radars for remote monitoring of radioactive contamination of air above nuclear power plants and nuclear-chemical production plants has been under discussion in the last few. years [I, 2]. Such stations are mainly employed for navigational support for airplanes, and in the process of location they can register reflected radio signals from clouds, rain, snow, and smoke above power plants, steam above cooling towers, and other atmospheric formations. Therefore, in developing methods for monitoring of atmospheric contamination it is of interest to employ existing radars for independent monitoring of industrial emissions.It is well known that monitoring problems are extremely complicated and expensive to solve. This is especially true for remote monitoring of radioactive emissions by radio measurement methods --microwaves are reflected mainly by free electrons formed by ionization of air and their density at atmospheric pressure is low even under the conditions of strong emission. Moreover, radioactive substances are ordinarily emitted together with a large quantity of warm air and aerosols, reflections from which can be many times greater than the reflection from ionization traces. For this reason, to substantiate the radar method of monitoring technological and accidental emissions of radionuclides into the atmosphere it is important to separate the useful signal due to radiation agairt~t the background of accompanying reflections. This requires more complete theoretical and experimental investigations of the processes involved in the formation of an ionized region and its interaction with electromagnetic waves.In the present paper we present some results of numerical calculations of the spatial distribution of radionuclides at the exit of a ventilation pipe of a reactor, analysis of their interaction with air, and formation of a weakly ionized plasma at atmospheric pressure, as well as data from radar observations of the air space above the industrial zone of a Siberian chemical plant (SCP) and IRT-T of the Scientific-Research Institute of Nuclear Physics at the Tomsk Polytechnical Universi-
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.