Radiological Dose & Risk Assessments
When the safety of your workers and the public is at stake, accurate and reliable health physics expertise is necessary to demonstrate compliance with federal and/or state regulations and guidelines regarding radiological exposure. ORAU’s highly-qualified health physicists perform site-specific radiation dose and risk assessments, using methods consistent with industry standards, to meet these regulatory requirements.
ORAU personnel have derived authorized limits for the U.S. Department of Energy per Order 458.1, dose-based screening values for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission per NUREG-1757, and derived concentration guideline levels (DCGLs) for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency, among others.
Dose models have included those for buildings and similar structural media, as well as environmental media including air, soil, sediment, rocks, surface water, and groundwater. Both retrospective and prospective assessments have been performed to determine radiation doses to past and current receptors, or hypothetical receptors based on central tendency or reasonable maximum exposure (i.e., critical group) scenarios. ORAU uses a variety of assessment tools to perform radiological dose assessments, including RESRAD, RESRAD-BUILD, DandD, MCNP and MicroShield.
Select Publications
- Gammage, R., Dudney, C., Wilson, D., King D. 1994. “Normal and Seasonally Amplified Indoor Radon Levels,” Proceedings of Indoor Air: An Integrated Approach, Nov. 27-Dec. 1, Gold Coast, Australia.
- Byrnes, M.E., King, D., Tierno, P. 2003. Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Terrorism: Emergency Response and Public Protection. ISBN 1-56670-651-3, Lewis Publishing, Boca Raton, Florida.
- King, D., Byrnes, M., Tierno, P. 2004. Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Terrorism: Emergency Response and Public Protection, Appendix A.3 to Public Protection from Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Terrorism, edited by Brodsky, A. et al., ISBN 1-930524-23-4, Medical Physics Publishing, Madison, Wisconsin.
- King, D., Keil, K. 2006. “Comparison of Standard Radiological Risk Models and Using RESRAD to Derive Generic Risk-Based Area Factors for Final Status Surveys,” Risk Analysis, Vol. 26, No. 1, 175-183.
Our Expert
David King, CHP, PMP
Health Physicist
Expertise: More than 20 years of experience in human health risk/dose assessment, environmental studies and project management
- Serves as project manager and technical lead for the assessment of various environmental and non-environmental media, derivation of site-specific cleanup goals, MARSSIM training and technical consultation covering a range of health physics related topics.
- Member: Health Physics Society and Project Management Institute
- Co-author, 2015. “Lessons Learned on the Presentation of Scan Data,” Operational Radiation Safety, Vol. 109, No. 5, S212-S218.
- Co-author, 2013. “An Approach for Addressing Hard-to-Detect Hot Spots,” Operational Radiation Safety, Vol. 104, No. 5, S52-S59.
- Co-author, 2012. “Minimum Detectable Concentration as a Function of Gamma Walkover Survey Technique,” Operational Radiation Safety, Vol. 102, No. 2, S22-S27.
Certifications: Certified Health Physicist, Project Management Professional
Contact us
For more information about ORAU's environmental assessment services, contact Sarah Roberts at 865.241.8893 or sarah.roberts@orau.org.
For more information about contracting with ORAU, contact Kathy Rollow at 865.574.4390 or kathy.rollow@orau.org.