Passive Technologies for Providing Radiation Safety of Buildings at the Design Stage

A human receives most of the individual annual radiation dose in buildings from radon and its progeny. Almost all radon enters the premises from the soil air through underground horizontal walling, therefore the foundation design should limit the radon flux from the soil as much as possible. At present, a unified methodology for ensuring the buildings radiation safety has not yet been developed due to the multifactorial nature of the radon situation formation process. The article proposes an approach to ensuring acceptable radon levels in indoor air of designed buildings using passive technologies for protection against radon entry. Radon 222 is a noble radioactive gas with a half-life of 3.8 days that can entry into the buildings from outside and accumulate in indoor air in dangerous concentrations. Prolonged exposure to high radon levels could lead to future lung cancer [1-2]. The US EPA estimate that radon is responsible for the death of about 21,000 people in the USA every year [3].