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RE: Removable Contamination Surveys

Title: Removable Contamination Surveys
One source document (for reference) is ANSI/HPS-13.49-2001 Performance and Documentation of Radiological Surveys (it is available in the "members only" section of the HPS website www.hps.org ).  Also numerous NRC Reg. Guides (1.86, 8.21, 8.23, 8.24, etc.).  These all recommend smearing a 100 cm^2 area.  It will also depend on what was written in your radioactive materials (RAM) license.  Your facility may have committed to a certain protocol or to following a certin Reg Guide.  If so you would have to amend your RAM license to use a different area.  Hope this helps.
 
Tom Huston, PhD, CHP
-----Original Message-----
From: Jenkins, Peter [mailto:PJenkins@ahs.llumc.edu]
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 1:51 PM
To: 'radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu'
Subject: Removable Contamination Surveys

Can anyone give me some insight (and possible source documents) into the reasons for the 100cm^2 standard (or suggestion?) used for removable contamination surveys?  Why is it 100cm^2 and not 1,000cm^2, or something smaller or larger?  Is there anything wrong with increasing the swiped area to increasing the likelihood of detection? 

Specifically, assume a removable contamination limit is set at 200 dpm/100cm^2 for a laboratory and a researcher wishes to use a survey meter to count the swipes.  According to the manufacturer's formula and values (for efficiency of the radionuclide, etc), the meter has an MDA of 400 dpm.  Is there anything wrong with performing the survey over 200 cm^2 so that the detection limit would meet the removable contamination limit?

Thanks,

Pete Jenkins






















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