Re: Sealed source definitions

[Al Tschaeche <antatnsu@pacbell.net>]

Richard J Sobilo wrote:
> 
> Radsafers;
> 
> The following are definitions from which you may pick your favorite: SEALED
> SOURCES

Wow.  You sure did a good job of finding appropriate definitions!  After
reading all of them and looking up a few more, I find that there is an
idea omitted from all of them that, if included, might help clarify the
definition.

When I was much younger and was fabricating sealed sources, I was on an
ANSI committee that was setting standards for the environmental stresses
that various categories of sealed sources meeded to be designed and
tested to pass.  One of the things we needed was a definition of sealed
source.  In those days it was defined as: "Radioactive material packaged
in one or more capsules sealed to prevent escape of the radioactive
material. It is the radiation from a sealed source that is intended to
be used, not the radioactive material itself."

Somehow the last idea has escaped all of the current definitions.  If
that idea were reincluded, it might help clarify some of the
misunderstandings.  Even RTGs are sealed sources by this definition
because it is the radiation that produces the heat.  

Do any of the old timers on N43 remember that definition?  Al Tschaeche
antatnsu@pacbell.net