Abstract
Radon enters buildings from several sources, principally building materials and the soil or rock that underlie or surround building foundations. The basic processes determining indoor concentrations are radioactive transmutations, attachment to aerosol particles, detachment by alpha particle recoil, plate-out on furniture and walls, and exchange with the outdoor air by natural or mechanical ventilation.
A multicompartment model has been developed which describes the fate of radon and attached or free radon decay products in a model room by a set of linear time-dependent differential equations. Time-dependent coefficients allow us to model temporal parameter changes, e.g. the opening of windows, or a sudden pressure drop leading to enhanced exhalation. While steady-state models have been used to study the effect of parameter changes on steady-state nuclide concentrations, our time-dependent models provide additional information on the time scale of these changes.
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Hofmann, W., Daschil, F. Modelling indoor exposure to natural radioactive nuclides. Acta Physica Hungarica 59, 19–22 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03055177
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03055177