Radioactive shower

Hi everyone !

Let's say that I would like to evaluate (in a simply and general way) the dose that someone would get from taking a shower with contaminated water...   What could be the steps to evaluate such a dose ? 

It could be Cobalt-60 and I also know the Bq/L activity.

Thank you for your kind help ! 

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Palhaço

a shower is 10 liters/min during 6 min.
Thus you recive 60liters water
After, it depend if you are drinking the water during your shower 

Domino a écrit:

a shower is 10 liters/min during 6 min.
Thus you recive 60liters water
After, it depend if you are drinking the water during your shower 

Hahaha, thank you Domino for your answer ! Let's keep it simple and casual   My model doesn't drink his shower water !

I was thinking about:
- Evaluate the surface and the volume of a water drop (like those we have in our skin just before using our towel)
- Evaluate the drop activity in Bq
- Evaluate the dose induced by this drop (as a single point source) by drop-area-unit (Sv/cm²)
- As I know now the dose for this drop, I would multiply this dose by the surface of the body (I will google that   ). Because I assume that my man is uniformly wet  

But it is like I have an instantaneous dose. And then I should find a way to integrate this dose over the 6 minutes shower...

Does my method makes sense to you ?

Let's say also that he has a particular skin which doesn't absorb water ...  

Hi Palhaço,


I would consider the water as a "ponctual" source. Troughout the shower you have the same quantity of contaminated water. So you have always the same quantity of cobalt-60. Of course, part of the particles will stay on the floor and on the skin of the guy, but i have no idea how to quantify this quantity.
Then, according to the quantity of cobalt-60 considering as a ponctual source, you can estimate the gamma dose. For the beta dose, i would use the same quantity than previously, knowing that all the water leaks against the body. In this way it should be easier to calculate the surface beta dose. 
Probably you will find the coeeficient of drop area unit to use including beta and gama somewhere on internet (i don't have my book with me). 
Last point, because should be difficult to imagine a perfect model, why not considering a 100% efficient wall of contaminated water ? With 5 mm thickness. The quantity of water being constant, you just have to estimate the size of the wall, then use the drop area unit.

I guess it more or less what you have imagined ?

See you.