Re: smoke detector activity

["Urciuolo, Louis" <lurciuolo@state.pa.us>]

Today, a nominal 0.1 micro Ci for Ra-226

and 1 uCi for Am-241 is not uncommon.



But yesterdays smoke detectors pose a bigger concern.

In the early 60's when Radium was transitioned to Americium

because of dose concerns, smoke detectors had about

two orders of magnitude more activity than today.



Pyrotronics Pyr-A-Alarm models F3 and F5 under GL-133

had 20 to 40 uCi Ra and 80-130 uCi Am.

Imagine demolition of a building containing dozens of these.

Would the waste trucks make it past landfill monitors or 

WMD surveillance points! 







-----Original Message-----

From: owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

[mailto:owner-radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu]On Behalf Of Brian Rees

Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 3:29 PM

To: radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu

Subject: smoke detector activity





What are typical Am-241 activities in consumer smoke detectors?



Thanks in advance,

Brian Rees



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