[ RadSafe ] Efficiency of Workers Wearing Respiratory Protection

[Jess L. Addis III]

Way back in the good ole days when I worked in real heavy duty operational
applications of health physics, those of us who thought we "knew what we
were doing" factored in use of full face respirators vs. whole body
exposure.

I remember the first time I pulled a reactor vessel head without full face
respirators. People reeled about the mistake I was making. Made sure we had
degassed under the vessel head as well as possible. The evolution went much
faster and smoother than it had previously gone.  Communications were much,
much better than we had experienced before and something like .5 mpc hour Co
and Cs.

Some of us used to make the same sort of "calculation" when it came to using
plastic anti contamination apparel. Heat prostration vs. a little skin
contamination was an easy decision to make for some of us. I have seen more
than enough people reeling from heat exhaustion and come closer to death
than comfortable from prostration.

I hadn't seen the 15% factor William, but it sure makes sense to me.

Larry Addis, RSO
Clemson U.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of William Lipton
Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2010 5:21 PM
To: Treadaway, Walter A
Cc: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Efficiency of Workers Wearing Respiratory
Protection

See NRC Regulatory Guide 8.15, Section 2.1:

*For ALARA evaluations, a respirator-induced
worker inefficiency factor of up to 15% may be used
without further justification. Larger worker inefficiency
factors may be used, but the licensee should
have test data to support them.*

William V. Lipton
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 5:04 PM, Treadaway, Walter A
<atreadaway at lanl.gov>wrote:

> It seems logical to assume that a worker doing a job wearing respiratory
> protection would be slower than the same worker without respiratory
> protection.  However, I can't find a reference in a peer-reviewed
> publication to support this assumption.
> Does anyone have a reference "in their back pocket" or can anyone point me
> in the right direction?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Allen Treadaway for Ron Morgan, LANL
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