RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION.

Abstract

Operation of radiological protection systems, unlike reactor protection systems, can seldom be designed to eliminate human components. In particular the man it is intended to protect is a critical component as are the supervisors and the management system for the workplace. Devices used include installed instruments for detecting the causal event which initiates a hazard or the level of the hazard itself as well as means to directly communicate knowledge of actual or impending danger to the person at risk. The system of protection includes all those components which maintain the various means of warning the worker that danger is imminent or present and ensuring that he is able to take action to protect himself. Training given in ″self protective skills″ must also be included as a component of any system of protection as must the person being protected. The warning system by which the person at risk becomes aware of the hazard has many components which may include static air samplers and monitors, personal air samplers, glove monitors, biological monitoring. It would include also the means to interpret and transmit information to the exposed individual. The interpretation and transmission function may take the form of a health physicist exercising his professional judgement and transmitting his recommendations by means of a written report. It may also be performed by an instrument which ″interprets″ a count rate in terms of preset levels and ″transmits″ the information that, for example, evacuation should take place in the form of an alarm signal.