A GRANULAR COLLECTOR FOR SAMPLING FALLOUT DEBRIS FROM NUCLEAR DETONATIONS

Journal Article · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1959 · American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal (U.S.) Formerly Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. Q.

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00028895909343715· OSTI ID:4224982

Romney, E M; Neel, J W; Le Roy, G M; Steen, A J; Larson, K H

A granular collector for sampling fall-out debris from nuclear detonations was developed which consists of a shallow, metal tray and a removable mylar plastic pellets. Fall-out debris impinging upon the exposed collector tray during fall-out is physically entrapped within the granular matrix and later separated from the matrix by wet sieving in isopropyl alcohol. The fall-out debris may be fractionated into different particle size ranges by dry sieving with standard testing sieves. An operational procedure for recovering the primary fallout debris from the granular matrix is described. The efficiency of the recovery procedure was tested using pre-sized glass beads, soil samples and fall-out debris. Virtually all particulate material smaller than the granular matrix could be removed by wet sieving in isopropyl alcohol. Less than two per cent of the sample was lost during a dry sieving process of fractionating the particulate material into 13 different particle size ranges. A recovery of more than 95 per cent of the samples processed through the operational procedure was consistently obtained. The granular fall-out collector was used extensively during the 1957 Weapons Tesiing Series in areas adjacent to the Nevada Test Site. It compared favorably with the gummed paper and was superior io resin-coated tray collectors and soil surface samples as a means of collecting fall-out; it was superior io all of these collectors with respect to the ease of separation of primary faH-out particles for physical and chemical characterization and for bioassays. The granular collector is economical for widespread coverage of anticipated fall-out areas. (auth)

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Los Angeles
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• NSA Number: NSA-13-019081
• OSTI ID: 4224982
• Journal Information: American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal (U.S.) Formerly Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. Q., Journal Name: American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal (U.S.) Formerly Am. Ind. Hyg. Assoc. Q. Vol. Vol: 20; ISSN AIHAA
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: English

Related Subjects

ALCOHOLS
EFFICIENCY
FALLOUT
FILTERS
GLASS
GRAIN SIZE
HEALTH AND SAFETY
MYLAR
NEVADA TEST SITE
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
POLYESTERS
POLYETHYLENES
POLYMERS
RECOVERY
SAMPLING
SOILS
TESTING