RE: contamination resuspension factors

["Sorensen, Scott" <ssorensen@doeal.gov>]

RadSafers,

Jack Priest:  <<Instead of reinventing the wheel, I am looking for
references to determine contamination resuspension factors.>>

I remember a similar inquiry on RadSafe a few months ago (Harold Reynods
at RFETS?)....  I agree with Jack that we should avoid reinventing the
wheel if possible.  Although there is lots of literature on
environmental resuspension, my attempts of finding occupational
resuspension factors have not been very fruitful either.  However, I
have come across a few papers which may be helpful.  Most of these were
presented in the 1967 symposium on Surface Contamination...

Jones, I.S. and S.F. Pond. 1967. "Some Experiments to Determine the
Resuspension
Factor of Plutonium from Various Surfaces", in Proceedings of the
Surface Contamination Symposium (B.R. Fish, Ed), pp 83-92, Pergamon
Press.

Fish, B.r., R.L. Walker, G.W. Royster and J.l Thompson. 1967.
"Redispersion of Settled
Particles.", in Proceedings of the Surface Contamination Symposium (B.R.
Fish, Ed.), pp
75-81, Pergamon Press, New York.

Stewart, K. 1967. "The Resuspension of Particulate Material from
Surfaces.", in
Proceedings of the Surface Contamination Symposium (B.R. Fish, Ed.), pp
63-74, Pergamon Press, New York.

A good summary and source of references for resuspension in various
environments can be found in DOE Handbook 3010-94 "Airborne Release
Fractions/Rates and Respirable Fractions for NonReactor Nuclear
Facilities.  Volume 1 - Analysis of Experimental Data."  This document
can be found on the web in pdf format.  Another avenue may be to
evaluate the hazard index methodolgy in NUREG-1400 "Air Sampling in the
Workplace" which makes use of Allen Brodsky's proposed "health physics
magic number" of 10-6.

My view on these resuspension factors is that their use is OK for
predicting air concentrations for stable, long-term operations.  The
associated uncertainty goes way up if you try to use them to predict
outcomes for short-term, transient operations.  As such, the best source
of data may come from actual "field" measurements made during properly
monitored radiological work activities.  There must be lots of this type
of information collected, but has it ever been formally analyzed and
published?  I too would appreciate any insight to any published sources
of this type of information...

-Scott Sorensen
ssorensen@doeal.gov
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