Acute and chronic intakes of fallout radionuclides @ S. L. SIMoNn ET AL.

As described in Beck et al. (2010), it was also

necessary to estimate the degree of fractionation and to
modify the reported Hicks (1984) calculations to obtain
NDestimates for these estimated fractionation ratios. The
estimated fractionation ratios for Bravo for Rongelap,
Ailinginae, and Rongerik were 1.4, 1.3, and 1.5, respectively (Becket al. 2010).
(3) Relationship between ground deposition den-

sity and acute intake. The acute intake was assumed to
be instantaneous and to be directly proportional to the
ground deposition density of each radionuclide. Thus, the
ratio of intake to ground deposition density, in all
settings, was assumed to be independent of the radionuclide considered. The ratios of the intakes to ground
deposition densities for any radionuclide were, thus,

derived from the measured intakes of '*'T and from the

161

atolls are presented in Table | as derived from estimated

TOAs (Beck et al. 2010, Table 6). TOAs ranged from

about 4 h for Bravo test fallout at Ailinginae to about

170 h for the most distant atolls and, thus, intakes there

were assumed to have taken place at 6 h and 238 h
post-detonation, respectively. As discussed in Becketal.

(2010), the fallout at distant atolls often occurred over
extended periods and, therefore, the assumption that all
of the intake took place at TOI may, in somecases, result

in a slightly conservative estimate of intake for some

radionuclides.

(2) Ground deposition density at TOI. As discussed above, in case of the Bravo test, the ND factors

were calculated taking into account the degree of frac-

tionation (Beck et al. 2010). The atom ratios of various
nuclides released from the detonations of different nu-

corresponding estimates of ground deposition density at
Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik.
In summary, the average intakes, Q (Bq), of any

clear weaponsvaried dueto differencesin fissile material

Ailinginae, and Rongerik, were estimated by means of

to thermonuclear tests. Although many radionuclide
ratios varied only slightly between the types of test

radionuclide, Z, other than '*'I, by adults at Rongelap,
eqn (2):

and device construction (Hicks 1981). As shown in Beck

et al. (2010), the '*'I to '*’Cs ratio was quite insensitive to

the particular test, even for non-thermonuclear compared

(thermonuclear vs. non-thermonuclear), some of the

ND(Z)pravo at TOI
O(Z) pravo = OCD pave X ———————_

radionuclide ratios differed significantly, reflecting the

different fission yields for **’Pu fission compared to **U

(2)
Estimation of the intakes by adults of any radionuclide on any inhabited atoll following any test. The

methodology used for Rongelap, Ailinginae, and
Rongerik following the Bravo test wasalso used for all
other tests and all other atolls. The intake of any
radionuclide at any atoll was assumedto be proportional
to the estimated deposition density of that radionuclide at
that atoll, 1.e., the pathways of acute intake were assumed
to similar for all atolls and all tests. This simplifying
assumption may not be strictly valid for atolls at large
distances from the test site where fallout duration was
much longer and particle sizes much smaller than at
Rongelap. However, we believe that this model provides
reasonable estimates of acute intake without any substantial bias at those atolls, though it is recognized that these

estimates are more uncertain than the estimates of ‘I
intake following deposition of fallout at Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Rongerik from the Bravotest.

fast fission. Most of the fission occurring in the thermo-

nuclear tests was from fast fission of 7*°U (Glasstone and

Dolan 1977). In this work, the radionuclide mixture for

the Bravo test was used for deposition-density estimates

for all thermonuclear tests, while for non-thermonuclear
tests, the radionuclide mixture for the Tesla nuclear test,

a typical *’Pu-fueled device tested at the NTS in 1955

(Hicks 1981), was taken to be representative of the
non-thermonuclear tests conducted in the Marshall Is-

lands (Beck et al. 2010). Regression equations as a
function of time for the ND factors for all nuclides

considered were developed and used to interpolate the
values to specific times not provided by Hicks (1981,
1984), but needed for the estimated times of intake and
for the assumed fractionation ratios. Note that because of

the long half-life of '*’Cs and the short half-lives of its
precursors, the ND values for '’’Cs activity can be
considered to be constant and equal to unity over the
range of TOAs and TOIs that were considered.

The '°’Cs deposition densities at TOI that were used

to compute deposition from each test at each atoll from

(1) Timeof intake (TOI). Here again, we assumed

equations 3 and 4 described below were, therefore, taken
directly from Table 7 in Beck et al. (2010).

sition, 1.e., TOI = 1.4 X TOA. Estimated TOIs for fallout

(3) Relationship between ground deposition density and intake. As indicated above, the relationship

that the acute intake at a given atoll following a giventest
occurred slightly before midway in the period of depofrom 20 tests for the 26 population groups residing at 25

between ground deposition density and intake, for a

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