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G S Linsley

Publications and source records attributed to G S Linsley.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1984

An assessment of the radiological impact of the Windscale reactor fire, October 1957.

On the 10th and 11 October 1957 a fire in the No 1 Pile at the Windscale establishment in Cumbria led to an uncontrolled release of activity to the atmosphere. The resultant cloud subsequently dispersed and radionuclides could be detected over England, Wales and parts of northern Europe. The extensive environmental measurements which were made during and after the release enabled a fairly accurate estimate to be made of the radiation doses to the most exposed individuals in the local population. Until recently, no estimates of the population dose resulting from the release had been published. This paper describes assessments which have been made by the NRPB of the population or collective dose from the release and of the possible associated health impact. In addition to the fission products that escaped, radionuclides were released from materials undergoing irradiation in the pile at the time of the fire. The assessment has included the results of a review of previously unpublished data which established the quantity of these nuclides released and considers their impact on both individual and population doses. The collective effective dose equivalent commitment from the release is estimated to have been 2.0 x 10(3) man Sv. The route of exposure which contributed the most to the collective dose was the inhalation pathway. Iodine-131 was the most important radionuclide, contributing nearly all of the collective dose to the thyroid and a large part of the collective effective dose. Polonium-210 and caesium-137 also made significant contributions; that from caesium-137 came in the longer term via external irradiation from ground deposits and the ingestion of contaminated foodstuffs. The methodology used in the study has been validated to a certain degree by comparing the predicted levels of individual thyroid activity and those measured directly in the weeks following the accident in London, Leeds and Cumbria.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Parameters for modelling the interception and retention of deposits from atmosphere by grain and leafy vegetables.

The Normalised Specific Activity (NSA), a quantity which relates the concentration of a contaminant per unit mass of vegetation to its daily rate of ground deposition, has been used as the basis for determining interception factors and retention half-lives for radioactive contaminants deposited on grain and leafy vegetables. The values are for use in assessing contamination levels on crops at harvest during conditions of continuous deposition. The approach implicitly takes account of other processes which influence foliar contamination, namely, translocation and dilution due to plant growth. The respective NSA values for grain and prepared leafy vegetables determined from several separate experimental studies are fairly constant and are of about the same level for fall-out strontium and caesium. There is evidence from previous studies on herbage to suggest that similar NSA values might be expected for other contaminants on grain and leafy vegetables. Plutonium is an exception in that NSA values for grain and prepared leafy vegetables are lower than those for the fission products by factors of between 5 and 10 depending upon the source of the contaminant. Consideration has been given to determining the most appropriate value of the fraction of activity transferred from grain to flour during refining. This is an element dependent parameter and the values estimated for strontium, caesium and plutonium are respectively 0.15, 0.5 and 0.1. The study has indicated the need for data in several areas in order to improve the capability to model interception and retention on field crops in continuous and acute release conditions.

Air Pollutants↗
PubMed1977

Leakage testing of medical radium sources.

The results of leakage tests on approximately 2000 clinical radium sources in current use in several hospitals are presented. The tests were carried out using a liquid scintillation immersion method. Less than 1% of the sources leaked radon gas (222Rn) to an extent greater than 1 nCi/24 h. The consequences of a small leakage of radon from a source while implanted in tissue are considered and compared with the hazards and problems created when sources leak during storage. A leakage rate of 1 nCi/24 h is suggested as an appropriate limit beyond which sources should be removed from use.

Radiation Monitoring↗