Re: More on Revigator

[rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu (Ron L. Kathren)]

I would be very cautious about making an open window measurement inside a
Revigator to measure exposure rate, as there is a large beta field which
would give a spurious reading.  Indeed most of the dose rate in air inside
the Revigator is from beta.  Remeber, it is the beta emitting daughters that
produce most of the external dose from the U-238 decay chain. 

Ron Kathren, CHP

 

 -- >
>     About that Revigator:
>     Last year the National Atomic Museum at KAFB acquired one of these 
>     former health wonders and quite an in-depth study of it was performed.
>     Our Revigator has removable contamination on the interior. In fact 
>     some of the ore has flaked off and is now laying on the bottom.  In 
>     short it was determined, by a couple of different methods, that it 
>     contained approx. 28uci of U-238, the max exposure rate was 9.0 mR/hr 
>     inside the Revigator using a RO-3C open window.  The Revigator was 
>     also placed inside a 55 gal. drum with an E-PERM.  This was done to 
>     measure the Radon build up using the known volume of the drum to 
>     calculate the concentration of Radium.
>     As I said this is a very short summary.  The study was actually done 
>     by Mike Enghauser, and if anyone currently knows how to reach him 
>     please let me know by private e-mail.
>     The Revigator will soon be on display at the museum once we take care 
>     of the loose contamination on the inside.
>     
>     ""Any expressed opinions are my own fault and not that of my 
>     employer.""
>     
>     Kevin Rolfe RCT
>     SNL/NM
>     kdrolfe@sandia.gov
>     
>
>