Re: Working life of sealed industrial sources

["Michael P. Grissom" <mikeg@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

Radsafers,

I believe one of the more notorious failures may have been,
as Wes Dunn noted earlier, more one of device.  That is, some
years ago industrial air cleaners used Ra-226 sources in the
nozzles (?) to de-ionize air.

Rumor has it that source material was released into many 
containers being "cleaned".  Unfortunately, the company was
a major food processor and containers (filled with food) so 
cleaned apparently did make it to market.

Anyone recall the particulars?

S.,

MikeG.


At 02:41 AM 10/7/96 -0500, you wrote:
>Is anyone aware of any incidents of leakage of the radioactive
>material from such sources (other than that due to accident etc) which
>could be attributed to corrosion or other age related failure of the
>encapsulation?  
>
>Radiation Health Section
>Health Department of Western Australia
>e-mail radgovwa@sage.wt.com.au

-----------------------
Michael P. Grissom
Special Assistant, SLAC
mikeg@slac.stanford.edu
Phone:  (415) 926-2346
Fax:    (415) 926-3030