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Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Protection/Planning
Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Protection/Planning
Chem/Bio Protection Advice for Office Buildings
This project synthesizes our understanding of building airflow, to provide concrete advice on preparing for a chemical or
biological release, as well as advice on what actions to take during a release. The advice is summarized on a web site,
http://securebuildings.lbl.gov/,
and in a detailed report (available on the web site) of the reasonings and assumptions on which the advice is based.
Additionally, advice for police, fire fighters, and other emergency responders is provided on the web site in the form of
pdf documents that can be printed; these forms summarize only the most critical information to help determine the response
to a chemical or biological release.
This project collects data on ventilation at existing airports, and determines what features of design or operation lead to
vulnerability to a chemical, biological, or radiological release. The aim of the project is to provide guidance so that airport
operators can evaluate their own facilities and make them safer.
This project creates computer programs that can be used to predict the indoor concentration of a chemical or biological agent
as a function of time, given information about the outdoor concentration and about meteorological parameters. The relationship
between indoor and outdoor concentration for a given building depends on how airtight the building is, how large it is, and on
the forces that drive air exchange between indoors and outdoors. The project has started by considering single-family homes,
but will be extended to apartments and commercial buildings. This type of information can be used by emergency responders to
estimate the severity, number, and location of casualties.
These maps show the estimated effects from the outdoor release of a chemical warfare agent in an urban area, two hours after
the release. Regions on the map are census tracts; each census tract contains about 800 homes.
