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TLD badge dose







   Good morning Radsafe,



       An X-ray thickness gauge manufacturing company I work for in the UK

sent three engineers to San Diego for training on a particular rig. All took

the TLD badges they were issued with here. Unfortunately the Company they

were working with in San Diego did not issue them with local monitoring.

They all carried out similar work whilst in the States, but one of them came

back with a badge reading of 1.4 mSv. The others nothing. On interviewing

them, the only difference I could discover was that the one who got the dose

had the badge in his suitcase whilst the others carried them on their

person. The guy with the dose attributes the exposure to what he said was

the very strict baggage surveillance now being practiced at American

airports, particularly he commented at San Diego. I was sceptical because to

get 1.4 mSv in the seconds it must take to scan a suitcase with X-rays

implies a very significant dose rate from the unit. He did comment, however,

that he was requested to open the case because they had picked up something

they considered needed visual examination, so they probably scanned it more

extensively.

       So - is such a dose feasible for suitcase surveillance or could

anything in the baggage compartment of a 'plane result in an actual dose or

an artefact? Obviously not a real problem dose-wise unless it continues to

show up on his badges, but any thoughts would be most welcome to satisfy

both his and my curiosity.



  David Hornsey



Radiation Safety

South Building Annexe

University of Bath

Bath BA2 7AY

01225 386540

e-mail:bssdjh@bath.ac.uk



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