Breathing Air - doe-std-1128-98

DOE-STD-1128-98

C.6.2

Breathing Air

For facility design, confinement of airborne radioactive materials should be the

required method of preventing internal deposition of radioactive particulates.

However, during operation and maintenance of the facility, situations may occur

(accidents, special maintenance, spill recovery, etc.) for which air-supplied

respiratory protection is required.

A plutonium facility should be provided with a system that is capable of supplying

breathing air to a number of workstations in each occupied area where the

following conditions exist:

-- Gaseous or airborne radioactive material may cause occupational exposure

limits of 10 CFR 835 to be exceeded;

-- potentially dispersible plutonium compounds exceeding 100 mg are handled

outside of containment devices; or

-- personnel may be required to enter cells or other areas that contain large

amounts of loose radioactive material for repair, maintenance,

decontamination, or operation.

Breathing-air systems may be portable or semi-portable bottled systems or installed

compressor systems. The facility design requirements should be determined by the

system selected.

Breathing-air supply systems should meet the requirements of ANSI Z88.2-1980,

Practices for Respiratory Protection (ANSI, 1980b) and 29 CFR 1910 (most recent

revision) (DOL, 1993). Air-line connections for the breathing air must be unique to

preclude connecting other gas supplies to the breathing-air lines. Additional criteria

for design of breathing-air systems found in the references mentioned above should

be considered.

C.6.3

Personnel Monitoring

The facility design should provide for location of personnel monitoring devices in

the vicinity of the workplace. To minimize the potential spread of radioactive

contamination, personnel survey instruments should be available at suitable

locations within the process area, such as for personnel exiting from glove boxes, at

bag-out stations, and at exits from compartmentalized facilities. Survey instruments

or monitoring instruments should be available at contamination-control change

rooms and at exits from controlled areas.

C.6.4

Criticality Safety

See Section 7.0 for detailed guidance on criticality safety in a plutonium facility

including criticality alarms and nuclear accident dosimeters.

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