Safe specific activity: a useful concept in monitoring areas containing activated materials

Conference · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1972

OSTI ID:4332025

Willis, C A; Willis, C A ^[1]

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1. ed.

From 3rd Health Physics Society midyear topical symposium; Los Angeles, California, USA (29 Jan 1969). See CONF-690103P1. A new concept, the safe apecific activity, is introduced, the limitations on its applicability are specified, and several values are presented. This concept has proved useful in the Hallam and Piqua Nuclear Power Facility dismantelment operations and is applicable to many operations involving large quantities of lowlevel materials. The safe specific activity guide is conceptually quite simple: if a specific activity is so low that replacement of all the human body with the activated element would not produce a maximum permissible body burden, then the material cannot produce an overexposure by being deposited in body organs. Safe specific activity values of interest include 0.015 mu Ci /sup 3/H per gm H, 0.002 mu Ci / sup 14/C per gm C. 0.01 mu Ci/gm for /sup 22/Na, 0.075 mu Ci/gm for /sup 36/Ci, and 0.25 mu Ci/gm for /sup 41/Ca. This guide must be used with discretion because it does not account for external radiation, lung dose, or gastrointestinal tract dose. In many cases of practical importance, however. meeting the safe specific activity guide is sufficient to ensure safety. Further. safe specific activity values based upon lung, GI tract, and external dose considerations can be obtained easily with the expressions presented in this paper. These expressions refer to the activity per gm of material rather than to the activity per gm of element. (auth)

• Research Organization: McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co., Santa Monica, CA
• NSA Number: NSA-29-029773
• OSTI ID: 4332025
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: English

Related Subjects

*RADIOACTIVITY
CRITICAL ORGANS
EQUATIONS
N48510* --Life Sciences--Radiation Effects on Animals--Man
N80400 --Law
N80500 --Management
ORGANS
RADIATION DOSES
RADIATION MONITORING
RADIATION PROTECTION
RADIOISOTOPES
REACTOR DISMANTLING
SAFETY