Energas Alternas: Tarea 3

Jose Jaime Paredes Peralta

January 28, 2016
Problem 1 Calculate the equivalent dose of natural radioactivity an adult person
receives from radioactive potassium (K- 40) in his/her body
Step 1
Calculate the amount of radioactive K-40 stored in the body.
N0 = 150 g (0.012%) = 18 mg
Step 2
Calculate the total activity of the decaying K-40.
A = No
Calculate the number of atoms in 18 mg of K-40:
N0 = 18 mg

1 mol 6.022 102 3

= 2.712 1020
39.964 g
1 mol

Calculate the rate of decay constant:

=

ln 2
ln 2
=
= 1.717 1017 /s
9
t1/2
1.28 10 years

Thus
A = 2.712 1020

1.717 1017 /s = 4657.61 decays/second

Step 3 Calculate the equivalent dose considering only the beta

decay.
D/t = Qb

Ate
4657.61 decays/second 1.3 MeV
= (1)
= 11pSv
m
70 Kg
1

Problem 2 Radioactive dose received from a spent nuclear fuel element at different distances. Figure 1 shows the dose in Sievert (Sv) received by a
person standing a certain distances from a spent nuclear fuel element
as a function of the time after which the element was extracted from
the reactor. Using the effect-dose curve in Figure 2, indicating the percentage of exposed persons who die after the exposure to a given dose,
answer the following questions:
(a) Supposing that a group of 10 reactor workers happened to work
for one hour at a distance of 10m from a spent fuel element 1 year
after the element was extracted from the reactor, how many of the
workers will eventually die?
D
6.5 Sv
t
So 9 of the 10 workers will probably die.
(b) Suppose that a group of 10 workers went into a storage room where
an old (50 years) spent fuel element was being kept. The element
was in a storage box without identification tag. Because of nonfunctioning radiation detectors the team did not become aware of
the true nature of the box only after working close to it (1m) for
one hour. How many of the workers will eventually die?
D
10 Sv
t
So all of the workers will probably die.