Vivimos una incesante etapa en la que la exploración espacial va tomando protagonismo. Todos hemos escuchado hablar de los vuelos comerciales en los que se pretende llevar a civiles al espacio o los ambiciosos proyectos de situar bases en la luna o en marte. Sin embargo, estos proyectos no se escapan de ser devorados por las llamas si no se toman las debidas precauciones.
Sigue leyendo Houston, tenemos un problema!Categoría: fire engineering
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In this video you can see a Demo of HazMat 4.0.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/1HLCPqd8RRI[/youtube]
Nuclear #3, Radiologic Risk.
Nowadays, it is common to find NRBQ (Nuclear, Radiologic, Biologic, Chemical) teams among emergency services.
To achieve success it is very important to train a lot and to have a deep knowledge of this kind of risks.
Today, in this post, I am going to talk about radiologic risk and its Spanish legislation, which is written by the Nuclear Authority in Spain (Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear).
Emergency groups
The first point to consider it is how to identify the teams which are going to manage the emergency. The NRBQ emergency teams are not going to do recuperation works, their target is the security of the citizens and save their lives (in Spain).
We can find the max level of exposition for the emergency teams in the RD 1564/2010. Moreover CSN (Nuclear Security Board) advertised a technic guide to inform how to apply that legislation.
Group 1
Urgent actions in the accident place.
(Save lives, prevent serious injury or prevent a worsening of the accident that could result insignificant doses to the public)
The director of the emergency, through the radiological group, makes every effort to keep the dose levels of the staff below the level of occurrence of severe deterministic health effects included in Annex Table VI.5 VI.
International recommendations by the CSN recommended to the Spanish Regions a max value of dose for this group in 500 mSv. Exceptionally, and to save human lives may exceed these values.
The people who will do these jobs could receive higher dose limits for exposed workers laid down in RPSRI * so they must be informed, trained and volunteers and it should be excluded pregnant women.
However, Table 5.5 of the CSN technical guide collects quantitative radiological criteria for implementing protective measures taken from the International Basic Safety Standars (BSS) of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy) established as a measure of protect medical advice before a new exposure or if the employee so requests in dose limit of 200 mSv.
Group 2
Emergency protection measures and other actions to protect the population.
The emergency director through radiologic group will do all efforts to reduce the dose to the staff during the emergency below max annual dose limit for the exposure in one year requirement in 50 mSv effective dose by RPSRI.
It has to be taken into account when setting the dosimeters of the staff who will intervene in the emergency.
Emergency zones and intervention development
Very similar to the zones of hazardous material intervention but with different nomenclature and taking into account that the end of one and the beginning of the next is determined by the dose rate.
Urgent measures zone
It is the interior of the bounded zone, in which it is necessary to take certain protective measures to prevent the emergency teams of receiving higher doses than laid down in DBRR for staff intervention group 2 and to prevent the population receive higher doses than the doses established in the intervention levels for urgent protective measures. This area will include the zone where the exposure level exceed 5 mSv / h.
Alert zone
It is the zone in which it is necessary to take protective measures to prevent the population receives doses higher than emergency teams. This area will include the zone where the exposure is expected to exceed 100 mSv / h.
Free zone
Outside the warning area, which is not necessary to apply protective measures because the doses are lower than those established intervention levels . The next figure show the definition of the areas of planning, showing the arrangement of zones and zone criteria apply in both cases.
In the first moments of an emergency you may not have the means to determine the level of exposure around the stage in which it has occurred. In these cases the DBRR provides the following criteria to determine the scope and dimensions of the zones, in open spaces and indoors.
In open spaces:
- Urgent measures zone will be the circle whose centre is the focus of risk and whose radius is 100 mts.
- Alert zone is the annulus whose centre is the source of risk and whose inner radius is 100 mts and 200 mts outside.
- Free zone is outside the Alert Zone.
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Nuclear #1, Gestión de emergencias radiológicas
En este artículo voy a compartir documentación relativa al curso de «Gestión de emergencias radiológicas» realizado en la Escuela Nacional de Protección Civil e impartido por el Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear.
Este creo que es un tema muy interesante a tener en cuenta ya que muchas veces, es más el miedo debido al desconocimiento lo que nos bloquea y no nos deja actuar correctamente.
¿Qué es la radiación?
El fenómeno de la radiación consiste en la propagación de energía en forma de ondas electromagnéticas o partículas subatómicas a través del vacío o de un medio material.
La radiación propagada en forma de ondas electromagnéticas (rayos UV, rayos gamma, rayos X, etc.) se llama radiación electromagnética, mientras que la radiación corpuscular es la radiación transmitida en forma de partículas subatómicas (partículas α, neutrones, etc.) que se mueven a gran velocidad en un medio o el vacío, con apreciable transporte de energía.
Si la radiación transporta energía suficiente como para provocar ionización en el medio que atraviesa, se dice que es una radiación ionizante. En caso contrario se habla de radiación no ionizante. El carácter ionizante o no ionizante de la radiación es independiente de su naturaleza corpuscular u ondulatoria.
Son radiaciones ionizantes los rayos X, rayos γ, partículas α y parte del espectro de la radiación UV entre otros. Por otro lado, radiaciones como los rayos UV y las ondas de radio, TV o de telefonía móvil, son algunos ejemplos de radiaciones no ionizantes.
En el siguiente documento os dejo las presentaciones del curso de «Gestión de riesgos radiológicos», espero que sean de vuestro interés. Este es el primer artículo de los tres que voy a escribir sobre este curso, en las próximas publicaciones compartiré el manual de primeros actuantes y la directriz básica, no te los pierdas!
Second point to consider in fires of steel-framed buildings (3/11)
Emergency Response Plan
If we have knowledge about the emergency response plan we will be able to know where the hazardous areas are and what kind of materials are there accumulate inside the structure and we will know the protection fire system implemented in that area.
The first step when developing an emergency response plan is to conduct a risk assessment to identify potential emergency scenarios. An understanding of what can happen will enable you to determine resource requirements and to develop plans and procedures to prepare the building. The emergency plan should be consistent with your performance objectives.
At the very least, every facility should develop and implement an emergency plan for protecting employees, visitors, contractors and anyone else in the facility. This part of the emergency plan is called “protective actions for life safety” and includes building evacuation (“fire drills”), sheltering from severe weather such as tornadoes, “shelter-in-place” from an exterior airborne hazard such as a chemical release and lockdown. Lockdown is protective action when faced with an act of violence.
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The emergency response plan it’s an alive document, it means this document is always being updated by the responsible and the emergency services have to participate actively. This let emergency services have a deep knowledge of the situation in case of emergency.
But, what are the most important questions are we going to ask ourselves in steel-framed buildings to develop the emergency response plan?
- Fire load inside the structure and situation.
- Fire protection systems.
The first it’s the main point for emergency services because on this depends available time before the structure collapse.
In this link you will find an interesting guide to develop industry emergency response plans.
If you need some help with your emergency response plan don’t hesitate contact me.
Links: Ready
