Contamination and Decontamination of a Light Armoured Vehicle
Abstract
Radiological decontamination experiments were carried out at the Defence School in Umea, Sweden, under the Swedish-Canadian accord. A Swedish light armoured vehicle was contaminated by driving it on a track upon which Sodium-24 in particulate form had been spread. The contamination pattern on the vehicle was characterized by a series of measurements with a Geiger-Mueller contamination probe and with Liquid Scintillation Counter measurements of swipes. A conventional high-pressure water spray, similar to that used by the Canadian Forces, was then used to decontaminate the vehicle. The contamination pattern on the vehicle was then re-measured. This procedure was then repeated with a new decontamination method, a forced pulsed water jet. The results of the two trials are compared herein. The two systems were found to produce similar results, with a slight edge going to the pulsed water jet system. It is important to note, however, that in both cases contamination remained on the vehicle, particularly in some of the wheel wells. Moreover, it was impossible to run the forced pulsed water jet system at a higher pressure without removing a significant fraction of the paint on the vehicle. These results indicate that water-based techniques alone are incapable of thoroughly decontaminating a vehicle, unless one is willing to operate at pressures high enough to remove paint, for example.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA410808
Entities
People
- Bjorn Sandstrom
- Dean S. Haslip
- Diego Estan
- Edward J. Waller
- Trevor A. Jones
Organizations
- Defence Research and Development Canada