Calculate the committed effective dose from ingestion of 1 Bq Pu-239 aerosol. How much does the committed effective dose change if f1 is changed from 0,0005 to 0,001? Explain the Change.

This exercise highlights an interesting issue resulting from the general philosophy of IDEA. The main aspect of the philosophy is the following: The users of IDEA can be sure that any results derived with the software are in agreement with the current national and international regulations and recommendations. Or in other words, IDEA doesn’t allow the user to do something which is not in agreement with the regulations or recommendations. According to these recommendations the f1 factor for Plutonium is 0,0005 for unspecified compounds or 0,0001 for insoluble oxides, respectively. Because of this reason there are no data for f1 = 0,001 in the database. As can be seen from the screenshot, there are dose coefficients for ingestion with the f1 factor being 0,0005 (absorption type G1), 0,0001 (G2) and – according to some other recommendation – 0,00001 (G3). So the committed effective dose from ingestion of 1 Bq Pu-239 with f1 = 0,0005 is 0,25 µSv. The corresponding value for f1 = 0,001 would be just twice as much because at this absorption level the committed effective dose is proportional to the absorbed activity, i.e. proportional to the f1 factor.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Hans Richard Doerfel

IDEA System GmbH, Am Burgweg 4, D-76227 Karlsruhe, Germany.

E-Mail: info@idea-system.com