Effective dose in the manufacturing process of rutile covered welding electrodes

Shielded metal arc welding using covered electrodes is the most common welding process. Sometimes the covering contains naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs). In Spain the most used electrodes are those covered with rutile mixed with other materials. Rutile contains some detectable natur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of radiological protection 2013-03, Vol.33 (1), p.213-226
Main Authors: Herranz, M, Rozas, S, Pérez, C, Idoeta, R, Núñez-Lagos, R, Legarda, F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Biological effects of radiation
Body Burden
Electrodes
Equipment Contamination
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Industry - instrumentation
Medical sciences
Occupational Exposure - analysis
Occupational medicine
Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine
Radiation Dosage
Radioisotopes - analysis
Radioisotopes - chemistry
Radiometry - methods
Radioprotection
Tissues, organs and organisms biophysics
Titanium - chemistry
Welding - instrumentation
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Summary:Shielded metal arc welding using covered electrodes is the most common welding process. Sometimes the covering contains naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs). In Spain the most used electrodes are those covered with rutile mixed with other materials. Rutile contains some detectable natural radionuclides, so it can be considered a NORM. This paper mainly focuses on the use of MCNP (Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code) as a predictive tool to obtain doses in a factory which produces this type of electrode and assess the radiological impact in a specific facility after estimating the internal dose. To do this, in the facility, areas of highest radiation and positions of workers were identified, radioactive content of rutile and rutile covered electrodes was measured, and, considering a worst possible scenario, external dose at working points has been calculated using MCNP. This procedure has been validated comparing the results obtained with those from a pressurised ionisation chamber and TLD dosimeters. The internal dose has been calculated using DCAL (dose and risk calculation). The doses range between 8.8 and 394 μSv yr−1, always lower than the effective dose limit for the public, 1 mSv yr−1. The highest dose corresponds to the mixing area.
ISSN:0952-4746
1361-6498
DOI:10.1088/0952-4746/33/1/213