Ionactive Consulting Blog

Was an interesting week at Ionactive Towers. A real mixture of RPS Training; and client visits comprising high powered accelerators for industrial processing, and a user of enriched uranium and HASS sources.

RPS Training

Our June RPS Training course ran Monday / Tuesday this week with 17 delegates. As always the delegates were diverse – representing a range of different ionising radiation source use. We had delegates installing and servicing irradiators (Cs-137), manufacturers of detectors incorporating Ni-63 sources, users of Beta Lights (incorporating tritium), medical staff from nuclear medicine departments and diagnostic x-ray, a DEXA (Dual Energy X-ray Absorption) scanner user, operators of blood irradiators, an engineer from the oil and gas industry (LSA NORM Scale), an engineer working with Novarka (who are building the new Chernobyl containment), two nuclear engineers who support the transport of nuclear fuel by road, and two technicians supporting F-18 production (F-18 QC and Cyclotron support).

As you see – quite a diverse delegate set! This is why we believe our training works so well – each delegate learns from each other by discussing the similarities and differences of their own radiation source use.

We are looking forward to our July RPS Training course (running 20 / 21 July 2009) which is proving to be just as diverse (Ionactive will be welcoming three delegates from Qatar who are flying in to the UK from Q Power).

Linear & Tandem Accelerators

Visited and assessed three accelerator facilities on a nuclear licensed site. These machines fascinate me – particularly since two of them are 20-30 years old and one wonders how do they still work? They are mass of cooling water pipes, ion sources standing on perspex ladders,  large oil cooled modulators and massive klystrons – all contained in a huge concrete vault. The third machine is a Tandem Accelerator based on Van de Graaff accelerator technology (yes, part of it is belt driven!).

Unlike the two larger linac facilities that accelerate electrons, the Tandem is an Ion Accelerator (e.g protons). Unlike the linac,   high voltage (5MV) is applied at the middle of the accelerating tube. It then accelerates ions in two stages: firstly by accelerating a negative ion, and secondly by further accelerating a positive ion (after transforming the negative ion into a positive ion at the high-voltage terminal). The net result of this double boost is a 10MeV accelerated ion – neat trick!

If this stuff interests you, have you seen our linac animation resource? If not, take a tour of a linear accelerator on our radiation resources page: ‘ The Linear Accelerator (linac) ’.



Uranium / HASS sources



Spent an interesting day on a site which has both uranium and HASS (High Activity Sealed Sources). A unique facility with an interesting array of equipment and technical challenges for radiation protection. On one scale you are looking for small activities of radioactive material  - the physical material having to be weighed, and contamination being looked for by careful alpha counting. At the other end of the scale you find yourself the other side of a large concrete wall shielding a multi- TBq Cs-137 source. The contrasts in hazard (internal vs external) and dose rate (small externally vs massive) are obvious!

Latest from Chris Robbins

I mentioned in our last blog entry (Moving CBRN Training to next level, 18/06/2009) that Dr Chris Robbins from Grallator Limited was working on some exploratory research for CBRN training using visual animation. I have seen the first stages of the maths and physics being turned into something our delegates would find extremely beneficial. Check out the following images below – note these are snap shots taken from a first person perspective walkthrough, buildings are shown as simple blocks (but it is early days!).



In the second shot below you can clearly see the 'hot zone' in red.



In the third test shot you can see the gradual change in colour from red (left side) to yellow / green (right side) as you move out of the hot zone.



Currently you can move around this area, walk between 'buildings', look up and down and turn around. The small figures at the top left of the screen shots give dose rate. There is much to do since this is just some test stuff - but I believe this will find its way into our future CBRN training resource.

Ionactive has been involved for some time in providing CBRN training to the UK emergency services (The R & N in CBRN). This has resulted in several successful three day courses run around the UK with more in the pipeline. Feedback has been generally excellent

We are soon to expand the R&N portfolio to offer training to a wider audience that would come under the general umbrella of ‘CBRN Resilience’. This would ensure that those involved in Emergency Management Planning, Local Government, Hazardous Area Response Teams, Incident management and Liaison, Healthcare Provision, Hospital Response, Emergency Planning and Resilience etc had an opportunity to benefit from our training approach.

As part of the CBRN training process, and indeed for all our radiation safety training, we have commissioned Dr Chris Robbins from Grallator LTD to produce various animation sequences. You can see a range of resource on our Multi-Media Pages – check out the ‘ CBRN – Radiological & Nuclear Hazards ’ resource.

As you will note from Dr Robbins website his expertise is far greater then animation alone – indeed mathematical modelling and simulation of real life events is one of his main services. This brings me to mention (hint) some up and coming resource – which is at an early stage of development but meets Ionactive’s aim of always providing something different to what is out there in the market place – Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) simulation (Dirty Bomb Simulation).

Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) Simulation

Now, those in the know will appreciate that there are many models around the world (just try google). Some will be based on simple Gaussian Plume Models, others will use sophisticated computer models to plot contaminants  and calculate dose rates.  Some will do no more than ‘Visualise’ the incident (e.g. animation of a plume) whilst others will provide outputs in terms of tables and graphs – useful to the experts but perhaps impenetrable to many of us. Furthermore, there are some codes and models out there which are freely available like Hotspot and no doubt these could be adapted to provide RDD simulation. But you know what – in my view none of these fit the bill for our training (even if we had general access to them). Therefore this new resource is intended to meet the following criteria:

• Be based on sound fundamental physics concepts using RDD modelling to deal with ballistics, advection (i.e. particles being blown away by the wind) and diffusion (i.e. very fine particles are dispersing as they move.)
• Provide outputs of dose rate and contamination spread in a ‘first-person game’ environment.
• Be understandable and appealing to delegates

The first of these is very heavy on the physics – but is essential to provide meaningful and realistic exposure values from a modelled incident. Chris has produced a paper on the fundamentals of this called ‘Radioactive Particle Transport’. Typically this paper includes material of the following form:

The ballistic behaviour of the particles can be modelled by assuming that at the scales of the particles Stokes flow is valid and that the friction on a spherical particle of radius r is given by where m is the coefficient of viscosity for air and v is the velocity of the sphere. If the velocity of the particle is resolved into horizontal and vertical components the following equations of motion can be constructed from Newton’s Second Law. where x and y are the horizontal and vertical displacements from an origin, m is the particle mass and g is the acceleration due to gravity. The coordinates are such that right and up are in the positive direction.

The complete study can be downloaded and read directly from his own area on our site: The Mathematics of Radiation Protection.

The second criteria is where all this heavy maths ends up – see the picture below (or at the header of our blog). Here you  see a mock up of the output of the model and this can be used in training environments. The idea is that during a group exercise the players can be taken through a RDD scenario and ‘experience’ the radiological environment. It will help demonstrate realistic values expected from monitors, EPD (Electronic Personal Dosimeters).



As noted above, this is at an early conceptual stage but I am very sure that this will be a significant move forward in CBRN radiation protection training .

Ionactive is now taking credit card payments for Radiation Protection Adviser (RPA) services and Radiation Protection Training (e.g. RPS courses). This has been driven directly by our larger clients (but is now assisting clients from all areas of industry). I was amazed to discover the actual cost for a large company in raising a Purchase Order (PO) for a relatively modest order value (in comparison to average order values across all their providers) - it can be a significant precentage of the to total value.

The process is quite simple from our end and is now a quick and neat way to settle accounts. Whilst it was envisaged that this would be most useful to the larger company requiring RPA services, we are finding that the RPS training courses which are currently priced at £399 (plus VAT) are attracting this payment method too. Quite frankly this helps both sides since we are also able to guarantee training places over the phone in an instant.

A very enjoyable day today! We finished our latest three day ‘R&N in CBRN’ Radiation Safety Course for the Scottish Emergency Services.  Interaction is such an important part of these courses and all three blue lights represented were happy to engage and debate the issues.

At Ionactive we believe that we offer good value for money - but you never can totally trust your hosts can you? There is always the chance that they might squeeze an extra delegate in by the back door – or in this case probably by a hole in the skirting board.



During a presentation on source security this extra delegate managed to infiltrate the training room and scuttle across the floor and generally make his (her) presence known. Said delegate was determined to be noticed darting between skirting board, laptop power supply cable and delegates feet. Unfortunately discussions on IAEA ‘D’ (Danger Values), HASS sources, Source Categories and similar failed to interest our friend who was eventually persuaded to take residence in a cardboard box awaiting the arrival of the RSPCA. This is certainly a gate crashing first for Ionactive.

Greetings from Scotland .... and indeed greetings from this Blog which has again suffered from too few entries (maybe I need to twitter instead?).

The R&N CBRN Training

As usual, been a hectic few weeks and no let up in sight. Last week we conducted our ‘R & N in CBRN’ for the Metropolitan Police. An excellent three days I feel with lots of interaction between all delegates. This ensures that each course has a unique twist.

This week we are running our next ‘R&N’ course for the Scottish Emergency Services. I have mixed this work with additional specific training for a major supplier to the oil industry. I know I like to talk a lot but I can feel myself going a bit croaky already – and its only Tuesday evening. This is a full on training week over 5 days for about 75 delegates in total.

Our new video resource for the R&N course has also been featured during the two above mentioned courses – some highlights are detailed below.

Whilst I normally fly to Scotland I took the car this time around as I had so much material and equipment to bring with me. Had a nice run up to Falkirk on Sunday afternoon – the sun was blazing and the scenery was just excellent – especially on the M74 through the borders.

Unfortunately I have to do that journey in reverse so it might not be so much fun Friday afternoon, especially if the weather turns as is predicted.  The only light at the end of the tunnel, apart of course from seeing my Wife and Boys, is to pick up the ‘Ramsay Special’ from my favourite local Indian Restaurant before I arrive back home.

New CBRN Video Resource

As noted briefly in my last Blog entry, I have commissioned Dr Chris Robbins from Grallator Limited to produce some specific resource to explain the main differences between the R (Radiological) and N (Nuclear) in CBRN. This resource was hot off the press and just ready for the two CBRN training sessions. You can watch the new presentation ‘ CBRN – Radiological & Nuclear Hazards ’ on our video resource pages. Some shots from the new radiation protection resource are detailed below.

Nuclear material scaling with activity

 

A criticality accident in progress



Two nuclear devices used in 1945...