STONEMAN II TEST OF RECLAMATION PERFORMANCE. VOLUME III. PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF DRY DECONTAMINATION PROCEDURES

A series of tests was conducted to improve the performance of wet decontamination procedures. Synthetic fallout made of tagged processed soils was dispersed over pavements and roofs so as to simulate the deposition of actual fallout resulting from land surface detonations of nuclear weapons. Removal effectiveness and effort data were obtained on motorized flushing and firehosing of paved areas. Direct firehosing with fan-shaped streams and lobbing of standard firestreams were performed on roof areas. The performance of motorized flushing was superior to that of firehosing both from the standpoint of removal effectiveness and effort expended. Portland cement concrete surfaces were consistently easier to clean than asphaltic concrete for either type of decontamination procedure. An improvised street flusher attachment was found to be satisfactory and its performance was competitive with the conventional flusher tested. For roofing surfaces no rougher than composition shingles, lobbing of firestreams from ground level appears to offer the same degree of removal effectiveness as direct hosing at roof level, where roof slopes provide adequate drainage. A mathematical model based upon theoretical considerations has been developed for the comparative evaluation of decontamination methods. (auth)