Re: Dose received from air travel?

[rkathren@beta.tricity.wsu.edu (ronald kathren)]

Note to Radsafers:

Thos interested in doses from air travel may want to check UNSCEAR, Merrill
Eisnebud's "Environmental Radioactivity" or pp. 30-31 in my own book,
"Radioactivity in the Environment".  There is a danger in using electronic
dosimeters in that these are energy dependent and the cosmic ray energies
are quite high, so high in fact that the traditional definition of exposure
as expressed in roentgens does not apply, ie the energies are > 3 MeV>  If
one knows that altitude and duration of the flight plus the latitude, one
can determine the dose fairly easily.  However, as a bottom line, the
typical dose from a cross country (US, that is) flight at 11 km (35,000
feet) is 20-50 microGy (2-5 mrad).

Ron Kathren




>     One of our people carried an electronic dosimeter on an LAX to 
>     Dulles flight and back.  The PED registered roughly 70 uR every 
>     15 minutes above the background level of 8 uR/hr, yielding an 
>     "excess" exposure rate (at 37,000') of 0.29 mR/hr.  The flight 
>     east totalled 0.938 mR.  (I won't vouch for the PED accuracy 
>     under those particular radiation conditions.)  We in the utility 
>     business often compare situations like this to our environmental 
>     impact, i.e. the annual exposure to the "hypothetical maximally 
>     exposed member of the public" of less than 1 mR.  When addressing 
>     non-HP's, I often add in my personal exposure "excess" when I 
>     lived in Colorado, probably an additional 100 mR/yr.  Why compare 
>     a miniscule gnat to another gnat, when you can compare to a 
>     buzzard?
>     
>     Eric Goldin
>     Southern California Edison
>     goldinem@songs.sce.com
>     
>One of the little handouts we give in radtraining is a "calculate your own 
>dose" sheet, clearly designed by the nuclear power industry, because it has 
>all the natural sources of radiation (elevation, medical X-Rays, building 
>construction, number of 600 mile flights, hours of television watched, 
>etc.), then, at the end, some numbers for how far you live from a nuke plant 
>(wherein those numbers are miniscule in comparison).
>     
>This sheet uses 4 mrem per 600 mile flight.
>     
>Hope this helps.
>     
>John
>     
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