Protection of Indoor Air from Radioactive Gas Radon

Abstract

A modern human receives most of the radioactive annual dose in buildings from radon and its progeny, which can cause lung cancer. In such conditions, the design of radon-safe buildings is an urgent task in the context of preserving the population collective health. The paper shows the inefficiency of using the radon flux density from the soil surface as a criterion for the potential radon hazard of a construction site due to its significant temporal and spatial variability. The design of an experimental device, which makes it possible to simulate the real conditions of radon transport in soil in laboratory conditions, is described, and the results of determining the dominant radon transport mechanism in soil by means of a laboratory experiment are presented. A method for determining the required radon resistance of the floor structure is proposed on the basis of the diffusion model of stationary transport.