[ RadSafe ] Ra-226 tubing?
gelsg at aol.com
gelsg at aol.com
Sat Sep 24 17:29:02 CDT 2011
Ed:
Just to clarify, my concern is not with radon progeny - they will be gone from the swipe after 4 hours. The real concern is that the radium may become mobile. With a 1600 year half-life, and being a bone-seeking alpha emitter, this can be a serious health concern. Having radon (with associated short half-life progeny) escape is pretty much expected. Having the parent radium escape is many orders of magnitude more seious.
Jerry
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Johnson <cejjr56 at gmail.com>
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>
Sent: Sat, Sep 24, 2011 3:16 pm
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Ra-226 tubing?
Some clarification on the Ra-226 tubing: The 0.5 cm diameter matches that
f my uncle's WWII souvenir deck cord, and I misstated the tubing material
omposition in my previous post; it was a clear plastic, not rubber. Also,
recall that the deck cord's cavity was not completely filled with the
adium phosphor. I believe the configuration was that only the interior
urface of the tubing was painted.
I agree with Jerry Gels concern about radon progeny contamination. Given
he long half life of Ra-226 (1600 years), it will be continuously producing
n-222 (3.8 day half-life) and approaching secular equilibrium. The deck
ords could by no means be considered "sealed" sources, and the Rn-222 could
asily leak out, as indicated by Kelly Grahn's post. Therefore, whatever
onfined space the item is stored in can become quite contaminated with
lpha- and beta/gamma-emitting progeny in transient equilibrium with the
n-222.
You might want to test if the item is still luminescent in the dark, though
he phospor might have chemically degraded. If it is a deck cord, the
mitted visible light intensity would not be sufficient to be visible in
aylight conditions.
Your item is yet another example of the many applications of radium-226 that
ere developed prior to the advent of fission reactors, when fission and
ctivation products were substituted for Ra-226. Those applications ranged
rom self-luminescence, to both real and supposed medical therapeutics, to
eutron sources, including initiators. I remember fondly Paul Frame/ORAU's
evigator (inhale deeply) and the radium-filled pillow "for a good night's
leep."
Don't you just love a mystery. Legacy items can be so much fun!
Ed Johnson
On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 9:22 PM, <grahnk at comcast.net> wrote:
> They already have an entry for this, and explicitly say they don't want any
for the collection.
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/radioluminescent/rope.htm
We've encountered 4 of these over the years in our Orphan Source Recovery
Program and they've all been leakers.
Kelly Grahn
Illinois Emergency Management Agency
----- Original Message -----
From: alstonchris at netscape.net
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Sent: Sat, 24 Sep 2011 02:31:25 -0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Ra-226 tubing?
Ed
Your answer is so good that it is almost hilarious. You should write a
page for the Wikipedia about it. I would bet money that Paul Frame, the
curator of ORAU's museum would be interested in the story, and picture, at
least. Whether he would want to, or could, take custody of the device is
another matter. Rick should be able to link to the HP Historical Museum
through either ORISE or ORAU.
Cheers
cja
-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Johnson
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Sent: Fri, Sep 23, 2011 9:15 pm
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Ra-226 tubing?
Hi Rick,
After viewing your photo, it appears to be a deck cord (i.e., barrier) that
was used during WWII, and for some time after, to warn sailors that they
were approaching the edge of a ship's deck during night-time ops. It is
difficult to be certain of this based on the photo alone, but that's what
it
looks like and the radium-226 is good supporting evidence. There are
sections of a ship's deck where steel railings are purposely not
installed to allow ready access and egress of equipment and supplies, and
this is especially true for aircraft carriers. Maintaining dark
operations
to avoid enemy detection was and still is essential for shipboard
operations
during war times. Before the installation of these cordons, and also
radium-filled deck markers (typically two-inch diameter disks attached to
the deck's edge), it was not uncommon for sailors to unwittingly walk right
off the edge of the deck and be lost to the sea on moonless or overcast
nights. When you're steaming along at 20+ knots on a pitch black night and
on a war mission, the overboard squid's cries for help are either not going
to be heard or the mission's demands do not permit a rescue.
The cords were strung between vertical stanchions that were bolted to the
deck. Typically, the cords and deck markers were filled with Ra-226 that
was chemically bonded with a phosphorescent material such as a sulfate.
The
design was to create a continuous thermoluminescence whereby the 185 KeV
photons from the radium-226 were exciting the outer shell electrons of the
phosphor, which in turn returned to ground state by emitting visible
wavelelength photons. The light intensity was low enough so as not to be
visible by the enemy at a distance, but high enough to be readily visible
by
sailors on deck. The clips on each end of the cord attached to the
stanchions. I seem to recall that these devices were replaced with
tritium-filled markers at some time after the end of WWII. There would of
course be less of a hazard with tritium-filled devices due to the much
shorter radiological half-life, pure beta emitter decay scheme vs. the
penetrating energy of the Ra-226 gamma photon, the non-bone seeker
biochemistry, and short effective half-life of the tritium should intake
occur. As well, radium filled devices build up a radon-222 gas pressure
and
tend to leak over time, resulting in loose contamination of surrounding
surface s by the radon decay progeny. If you want to know about leaking
radon from supposed sealed sources, just ask any of the EPA/Roy F. Weston
or
was it Chem Nuclear(?) personnel that performed the Superfund emergency
removal of 120 or so curies of radium-filled medical devices from the
"vault" at the Radium Chemical Company facility in Queens back in the late
80s.
You may know that for many decades after WWII ended the Navy was not very
scrupulous about either acknowledging the hazards associated with this
material or disposing of the devices in a manner that we would find
acceptable today. In fact, the regulatory requirements either did not
exist
or were not well-enforced (as a federal agency the Navy was regulated by
the AEC/NRC), or the material was exempted. How do I know what your item
is, you may wonder? When I was a regulator for the New York State DEC, we
investigated a Yellow Freight terminal property in Rochester (Erdman
Street)
that bordered a landfill where deck markers had been disposed. Some were
surfacing. Also, my uncle served on a light cruiser during WWII and
brought
one of these cords home with him after the war. In the 1960s as a kid, my
brother and I played with the cord because, "gee, look Wally, it glows in
the dark." Neither I nor my parents nor my uncle had any idea that we were
likely being frequently dosed from the thing.
There were probably many linear miles of that rubber tubing produced during
the war, and one wonders where it all went! Hmmmm...old barns, landfills,
and attics can be such treasure troves of forgotten history. Like my
brother's Hot Wheels dragsters that are now worth $50K apiece but are
buried
under 150 feet of compacted garbage. Oh well. If Oak Ridge Associated
Universities is still operating and still maintaining their museum of rad
material relics, you might want to contact them and ask if they want to
take
it off your hands. Anywho, hope this helps you, and I would like to hear
about your disposition of this item in a follow-up post.
Best of luck,
Carl Ed Johnson
Still a sometimes HP (unaffiliated)
Albuquerque, New Mexico
cejjr56 at gmail.com
505-463-6685
All,
Please see the attached PDF file (assuming the attachment goes through) of
a photo of an item that was found in an old barn in New Hampshire, USA. It
appears to be a bundle of rubber or plastic tubing with metal clips on the
ends. The bundle in the photo is approximately 15 cm in diameter, with a
tube thickness of approximately 0.5 cm. The contact exposure rate is 50
mR/hr, and the isotope was identified to be Ra-226. Does anyone know what
this might be or where it might have come from?
(See attached file: Ra-226 tubing3.pdf)
Thank you,
Rick D'Alarcao, Ph.D.
Health Physicist
Radiological Health Section
Bureau of Public Health Protection
New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services, Department of Health and
Human Services
Division of Public Health Services
29 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03301-6504
Phone: (603) 271-7578
Fax: (603) 225-2325
Email: rdalarcao at dhhs.state.nh.us
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