Re: Contaminated Hosp Pipes

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 05:11 PM 6/20/97 -0500, you wrote:
>This looks like another "non-problem" dose wise.  I cannot believe what
>I see on radsafe recently.  This plus the guard's clothing plus
>conatminated lead, none of which will produce ANY significant dose to
>anyone.

I have to defend the guard's clothing practice. When rubbed, synthetic
fabrics develop an electrostatic charge, and that will attract the noble
gas decay products that are of no dose consequence at all. BUT...the alarms
in the frisker booths are set at levels where, if the contamination is on
the skin and is long-lived, it would be appropriate to detect it and get it
removed.  The polyester fabric causes noble gas false alarms when one
considers dose, but the alarm levels are appropriate for other dose
scenarios that really do happen.

The alarms become an operational nuisance during the mass exodus from the
controlled area at lunch time. Changing to all-cotton uniforms (and
training the plant staff to avoid synthetics in their personel clothing) is
an easy fix.


Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(415) 926-3793     bflood@slac.stanford.edu
Unless otherwise noted, all opinions are mine alone.