[ RadSafe ] Am-241

[Jose Julio Rozental]

Dear Rafi and colleagues,

Ionizing Chamber Smoke Detectors - ICSDs, has an interesting study made by
Nuclear Energy Agency NEA - Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development OECD, 1977 to justify its use.
The document is "Recommendations for ICSDs in implementation of radiation
protection standards" and followed  recommendations of the ICRP and the NEA
Guide 1970 on Basic approach for safety analysis and control of products
containing radionuclides and available to the general public.
The Basic Requirements for Am-241 were activity and dose equivalent rate.
About the activity, per detector, shall not exceed 20 microCi.  At that
time, considering Am-241,  the great majority of
ICSDs used sources in the range of 0.5 to 130 micoCi, and activities above
80 microCi were found only in types of detectors no longer being produced.
So please take a look again on the value that you have mentioned 70 mCi per
detector.

The NEA Study took into consideration Incidents involving ICSDs in UK, from
1966 to 1977, as fire, theft, bomb explosion, bomb explosion and subsequent
fire, mutilation of detectors, etc. The document present results of the
incidents.
Appendix III present fire and incineration tests on ICSDs - Two fire tests
are described 600 and 1200 degrees.

Jose Julio Rozental
joseroze at netvision.net.il
Israel

----- Original Message -----
From: "srebro" <srebro at bgumail.bgu.ac.il>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 9:50 AM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Am-241


> Hi
>
>      I know of one case of alpha contamination after a fire. A big hotel
was
> completely burn in a fire. The smoke detectors were very old containing
> about 70 mCi Am-241 each. The result alpha contamination found in the
ashes
> and ruins .
>
>
>
>
> Rafi
>
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