Hi Dando,
I am shocked at the poor information you have been given by the Manchester Fire and Rescue Service. If what you have written is an accurate copy of their correspondence to you, I cannot believe that they would be so wide of the mark. :confused:
A direct dose of 10 sieverts is massive! It would kill 100 people out of 100 within a month of their exposure to it.
The accepted UK radiation workers exposure is 20 milli sieverts per annum. Fire Brigade Dosemeters are set to alarm at 100 millisieverts as a one off emergency dose to allow for saving life.
Alpha and Beta particles have very poor penetration power, unlike a pure gamma source which is in the form of a ray and will easily penetrate your perspex.
The glass on an undamaged aircraft clock is sufficient to provide enough shielding that radiation wouldn’t be a significant problem. However if the glass is damaged the source would be considered to have become unshielded and therefore present a risk of contamination/irradiation. Obviously the more dials involved the greater the risk.
Accidental ingestion of an alpha / beta emitting fragment could cause a great deal of harm to you and would be a much greater hazard than the effect of passive irradiation caused by exposure to an instrument dial.
(Remember Alexander Litvinenko.)
What I am trying to say is to completely disregard the information you have been given (If as you say you have been advised that 10 sieverts for 3000 minutes is fairly acceptable) and seek proper advice.
Gerry
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