Re: Landauer's New Badge

[Raymond Carroll 441-6944 <CARROLLRG@lmus.com>]

There have been some very interesting comments on the pro's and con's of the 
new Landauer badge.  Two other points to consider:

Nuclear power plants went to very sensitive half body monitors some years ago 
for monitoring personnel contamination to prevent taking even low levels of 
contamination out of the plants.  The industry also developed more sensitive 
portable monitoring instruments.  Both of these are good ideas and should be 
applauded.  One problem though - the NRC, through individual inspectors, 
started taking the position that if you can measure it, it is radioactive and 
must be treated as such.  Suddenly, levels at or below background became 
expensive radioactive waste.  Think about that in relation to 1 mrem 
reportable dose.  The regulators and public will.  (I agree that if you are 
concerned about seeing 1 mrem then you probably are wasting your employeer's 
money by monitoring those individuals.  That is not ALARA.)

I haven't seen any data on the new Landauer system (I'm not currently involved 
in that area but have been in the past.)  LiF has been a good TL material for 
several reasons, one of which was the approximation of tissue equivalence.  
How does the new material match up in that regard?

Points to ponder.

The above opinions are strictly my own and are worth what you pay for them.

Ray Carroll
carrollrg@lmus.com

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