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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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