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Virginia Administrative Code
Title 12. Health
Agency 5. Department of Health
Chapter 481. Virginia Radiation Protection Regulations
12/22/2024

12VAC5-481-2720. Performance criteria for sealed sources.

Article 3
Design and Performance Requirements for Irradiators

A. Sealed sources installed after July 1, 1993, shall:

1. Have a certificate of registration issued by the NRC or another agreement state;

2. Be doubly encapsulated;

3. Use radioactive material that is as nondispersible as practical and that is as insoluble as practical if the source is used in a wet-source-storage or wet-source-change irradiator;

4. Be encapsulated in a material resistant to general corrosion and to localized corrosion, such as 316L stainless steel or other material with equivalent resistance if the sources are for use in irradiator pools; and

5. In prototype testing of the sealed source, have been leak tested and found leak-free after each of the tests described in subsections B through G of this section.

B. The test source shall be held at -40ºC for 20 minutes, 600ºC for one hour, then be subjected to a thermal shock test with a temperature drop from 600ºC to 20ºC within 15 seconds.

C. The test source shall be twice subjected for at least five minutes to an external pressure (absolute) of 2 million newtons per square meter.

D. A 2-kilogram steel weight (2.5. centimeters in diameter) shall be dropped from a height of 1 meter onto the test source.

E. The test source shall be subjected three times for 10 minutes each to vibrations sweeping from 25 hertz to 500 hertz with a peak amplitude of five times the acceleration of gravity. In addition, each test source shall be vibrated for 30 minutes at each resonant frequency found.

F. A 50-gram weight and a pin (0.3 centimeter pin diameter) shall be dropped from a height of 1 meter onto the test source.

G. If the length of the source is more than 15 times larger than the minimum cross-sectional dimension, the test source shall be subjected to a force of 2000 newtons at its center equidistant from two support cylinders, the distance between which is 10 times the minimum cross-sectional dimension of the source.

Statutory Authority

§ 32.1-229 of the Code of Virginia.

Historical Notes

Derived from Virginia Register Volume 22, Issue 25, eff. September 20, 2006; amended, Virginia Register Volume 24, Issue 18, eff. June 12, 2008; Volume 32, Issue 24, eff. August 25, 2016.

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