Hand calculations for transport of radioactive aerosols through sampling systems

Workplace air monitoring programs for sampling radioactive aerosols in nuclear facilities sometimes must rely on sampling systems to move the air to a sample filter in a safe and convenient location. These systems may consist of probes, straight tubing, bends, contractions and other components. Evaluation of these systems for potential loss of radioactive aerosols is important because significant losses can occur. However, it can be very difficult to find fully described equations to model a system manually for a single particle size and even more difficult to evaluate total system efficiency for a polydispersed particle distribution. Some software methods are available, but they may not be directly applicable to the components being evaluated and they may not be completely documented or validated per current software quality assurance requirements. This paper offers a method to model radioactive aerosol transport in sampling systems that is transparent and easily updated with the most applicable models. Calculations are shown with the R Programming Language, but the method is adaptable to other scripting languages. The method has the advantage of transparency and easy verifiability. This paper shows how a set of equations from published aerosol science models may be applied to aspiration and transport efficiency of aerosols in common air sampling system components. An example application using R calculation scripts is demonstrated. The R scripts are provided as electronic attachments.