In the era of the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy, it is not easy to stay away from what is happening, and therefore the radiation safety standards have become particularly relevant. Their knowledge may help to adequately assess the situation that may arise in the event of a nuclear disaster. Despite the fact that the Cold War had already ended long ago, the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction did not cease to exist, and the peaceful atom has repeatedly led to nightmarish consequences. The most tragic example is the Chernobyl accident, when permissible radiation standards were overstated by a factor of ten, or even not taken into account at all. Many liquidators and victims knew almost nothing about this.
In the Russian Federation, Ukraine, as well as in many other countries, generally accepted radiation safety standards are established. They are enshrined in laws and departmental regulations. First of all, radiation safety standards apply to employees of nuclear power plants, radiation-unsafe military and other facilities.
Moving from a generalized knowledge of these standards, it is necessary to directly characterize and concretize them. Most handbooks interpret radiation safety standards as the limiting doses of human exposure to radiation, which are considered relatively harmless to health. In scientific understanding, they are advisory in nature. Basically, such standards are set relative to the cumulative dose of radiation from all radiation sources, which affects a person throughout the year.
Radiation doses are measured in gree and rad. These are fairly generalized units that do not take into account the fact that exposure to the same doses of different types of radiation entails various biological damages. For example, a dose of 1 rad of alpha radiation causes approximately 20 times more biological damage than 1 rad of gamma or beta radiation. Radiation safety standards with similar differences in biological exposure are calculated using a radiation type quality factor (relative biological effectiveness) - a value that is approximately determined.
A more objective assessment of the effect of radiation on a specific living organism is carried out taking into account the so-called equivalent (effective) dose. It is determined by multiplying the absorbed dose (in rad) by the radiation coefficient of quality (QC), its non-systemic unit is considered biological. equiv. glad (ber). According to the SI system, the equivalent dose is expressed by sievert (Sv). 1 Sv = 1 J / kg = 1 Gy, 1 Sv = 100 ber. The permissible radiation norm in accordance with the established standards for humans is not more than 0.1 ber (excluding natural sources of radiation). Professionals working with artificial radiation sources (employees of nuclear power plants, for example) should not receive irradiation over 5 ber for a year.
Thus, it is necessary to be able to calculate and compare radiation standards. There are also many individual radiation measuring instruments available commercially. If there is a danger of emergencies related to the radiation hazard, it is important to remember the need to use personal protective equipment and sorbents.