ABSTRACT
The objectives of this project were to investigate:
1.
2.
3.
the contaminability of widely used building materials,
the effectiveness of practical decontamination techniques,
the effectiveness of painting and sealing of joints in
reducing contamination,
lk. the effect of slope on contamination retentivity, and
5.
the effectiveness of pre-attack surface washdown in reducing
contamination.
Test panels, four ft square, of 14 building materials were
mounted on the weather surfaces of two remotely controlled liberty
ships and on a stationary barge. One of the ships was protected by a
washdown system.
All surfaces were contaminated significantly with tenacious
fallout. Vertical surfaces facing upwind became equally or more
highly contaminated than horizontal or pitched surfaces, probably due
to wind currents impacting the tenacious contaminant onto surfaces
normal to it. <A sequence of hosing and vigorous scrubbing operations
resulted in contamination reductions of hO to 70 per cent, but with
reductions on most surfaces being less than 50 per cent. The most
effective decontamination method was scrubbing. Under the conditions
of this test, painting and joint sealing had little effect while the
washdown countermeasure reduced the initial contamination over 90
per cent.
It is concluded that contamination from fallout encountered in
these tests presents a serious decontamination problem on buildings
and paved areas and further development of effective countermeasures
is necessary,
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