Potential Exposures from Low-Yield Free Air Bursts

That there is little fallout hazard close to ground zero from free air bursts of tactical nuclear weapons may be true as long as wet deposition is excluded. However, in real operational situations one may not have the option of excluding wet deposition by selecting appropriate meteorology. Hence it...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Knox, J B, Crawford, T V, Crandall, W K
Format: Report
Language:English
Subjects:
AIRBURST
Environmental Health and Safety
FALLOUT
GAMMA RAYS
IODINE
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
RADIATION HAZARDS
Radiation Pollution and Control
RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPES
THYROID GLAND
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Summary:That there is little fallout hazard close to ground zero from free air bursts of tactical nuclear weapons may be true as long as wet deposition is excluded. However, in real operational situations one may not have the option of excluding wet deposition by selecting appropriate meteorology. Hence it is important to assess the consequences of wet deposition of the airborne radioactive inventory from such detonations. In this report we examine the potential close-in whole-body exposure from external gamma radiation and the thyroid exposure through the forage-cow-milk pathway for hypothetical 1, 10, and 100 kt all-fission air bursts. Our results indicate that complete scavenging of the 1-kt cloud, scavenging of the lower 10% of the 10-kt cloud, or scavenging of the lower 1-2% of the 100-kt cloud will give infinite external gamma exposure of a few hundred to 1000 rems 100 km downwind. If wet deposition should occur 1000 km downwind without any previous precipitation scavenging, the potential external gamma exposure is of the order of 1 rem. The results also indicate large potential thyroid exposures to man by way of the forage-cow-milk pathway from wet deposition of radioiodine (I-131).