Ingestion dose model for transportation risk assessment

Abstract

Risks of transporting radioactive materials can be estimated using the programme and code RADTRAN. Potential radiation doses to various receptors are calculated by RADTRAN, including doses from routine, incident free transportation and from transportation accidents. If radioactive material is released from a transportation vehicle in an accident, agricultural products in the plume footprint could be contaminated. This paper discusses a method for calculating radiation doses from ingestion of such radioactively contaminated food stuffs. Transportation of radioactive materials occurs throughout the USA, so that agricultural products along many transportation corridors could be affected. However, doses from ingesting agricultural crops contaminated from a traffic accident would be very small compared to natural background radiation.

Keywords:

• ionizing radiation, food pathway, agriculture