| NUKLEONIKA 2010, 55(4):451-457
APPLICATION OF NUMERICAL MODELLING FOR THE BETTER DESIGN OF RADON PREVENTIVE AND REMEDIAL MEASURESMartin Jiránek Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University, 7 Thákurova Str., 166 29 Praha 6, Czech Republic The main aim of the presented work was to verify, whether soil gas radon concentrations measured directly on building sites at a depth of 0.8 m below ground level and used in several countries for the design of protective measures against radon from the soil are in agreement with concentrations measured under houses after they had been built on a corresponding site. The correlation between sub-slab concentrations and concentrations measured at a depth of 0.8 m below the uncovered soil surface has been studied using a numerical simulation with the help of the computer program Radon2D. Numerical predictions showed that radon concentrations under the houses could be significantly different from concentrations measured on the building site and used for the assessment of radon risk categories. The highest differences were predicted for soil profiles with highly permeable upper layers. In the case of houses resting on the ground level the sub-slab radon concentration can be up to 3.4 times higher compared to the concentration measured at a depth of 0.8 m. An even higher increase was predicted for houses with the floor embedded 2 m below ground level. In this case the sub-floor concentrations increased up to 9.3 times. Numerical modelling can thus be considered as a powerful tool that can ensure the higher reliability of radon preventive and remedial measures. Close X |