[ RadSafe ] Airborne radioactivity

[John R Johnson]

Jack

Was the radioactivity in the ANL situation from the water, or from Th-Nat in 
the welding rods?

John
***************
John R Johnson, PhD
CEO, IDIAS, Inc.
Vancouver, B. C.
Canada
(604) 222-9840
idias at interchange.ubc.ca

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Earley, Jack N" <Jack_N_Earley at RL.gov>
To: "Harold Careway" <hacrad at comcast.net>; <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 12:00 PM
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Airborne radioactivity


Thanks for the clarification, Hal. Another scenario would be arc welding 
under water in a radioactive basin/fuel pool. ANL had some uptakes a few 
years back from this activity that was unanticipated from initial air 
samples.


Jack Earley
Health Physicist
509.372.9532

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf 
Of Harold Careway
Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 10:04 AM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Airborne radioactivity

Franz,
I'm guessing I may know what is going on here but can't really help.  Given 
a line carrying a radioactive gas, if that line breaks under water the gases 
can be released to the water and depending upon flow rate, gas content, 
temperature of the gas and water, and water depth; the resultant bubbles can 
be scrubbed in the water resulting in various levels of contamination in the 
air above the water as well as in the water. Up to the point of entrainment 
in the water, the process is strictly physical and non-chemical.  Once the 
material is in the water, chemical variations compound the analysis. The 
solution is non-trivial (you need elliptic integrals) and though the NRC has 
done significant work in this area, the only really accurate and valid work
I've ever seen was done by GE Nuclear and is strictly proprietary.

To find what is available you can start with NUREG/CR-5901, "A Simplified 
Model of Aerosol Scrubbing by a Water Pool Overlying Core Debris Interacting 
With Concrete", then go onto Google and look for "pool scrubbing" and 
"DECON".

Frankly, trying to do a realistic calculation or model is extremely really, 
really hard to do.  I know of no rules and thumb and would be interested if 
anyone else does.

Hal Careway
San Jose, CA
GE Retired.

-----Original Message-----
>From Franz Schönhofer
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 4:38 PM

Dear Health Physicist,

This is the first of two messages today, which request from RADSAFErs some 
information without giving even the slightest details. As a Health Physicist 
you should know, that there are thousands of different radionuclides, which 
behave differently, coming in different chemical forms, have different 
solubility etc. etc. Do you want to know the radon level to be 
expected...... bla, bla, bla.

Not being a native speaker I regard "air line" being rather in the context 
of "DELTA", "Austrian Airlines", "Lufthansa", "Iberia" etc.

I hope you can explain, what you really want.

Franz



Franz Schoenhofer, PhD
MinRat i.R.
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Wien/Vienna
AUSTRIA


>From Earley, Jack N

Does anyone have any calculations or guidelines for determining the 
resulting airborne radioactivity levels from an air line breaking under 
water, relative to the air flow rate (or from performing an air sparge in 
radioactive water)?



Jack Earley
Health Physicist
509.372.9532

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