1/28/13 Isotope Decay Rate

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Radiography

Introduction
Isotope Decay Rate (Half-Life) History
Pre se nt State
Future Dire ction
Each radionuclide decays at its own
unique rate which cannot be altered by Physics of Radiography
Nature of Pe ne trating
any chemical or physical process. A useful R adiation
X-rays
measure of this rate is the half-life of the Gam m a R ays
radionuclide. Half-life is defined as the Activity
De cay R ate
time required for the activity of any -C arbon 14 Dating
particular radionuclide to decrease to one- Ionization
Inve rse Square Law
half of its initial value. In other words one- Inte raction of R T/Matte r
Atte nuation C oe fficie nt
half of the atoms have reverted to a more Half-Value Laye r
Source s of Atte nuation
stable state material. Half-lives of -C om pton Scatte ring
radionuclides range from microseconds to billions of years. Half-life of two widely used Ge om e tric Unsharpne ss
Filte rs in R adiography
industrial isotopes are 74 days for iridium-192, and 5.3 years for cobalt-60. More exacting Scatte r/R adiation C ontrol
calculations can be made for the half-life of these materials, however, these times are commonly R adiation Safe ty
used. Equipment & Materials
X-ray Ge ne rators
R adio Isotope Source s
The applet below offers an interactive representation of radioactive decay series. The four R adiographic Film
Ex posure Vaults
series represented are Th232, Ir192, Co60, Ga75, and C14. Use the radio buttons to select
the series that you would like to study. Note that Carbon-14 is not used in radiography, but is Techniques & Calibrations
one of many useful radioactive isotopes used to determine the age of fossils. If you are Im aging C onside ration
C ontrast
interested in learning more about Carbon-14 Dating, follow this link: Carbon-14 Dating. De finition
R adiographic De nsity
C haracte ristic C urve s
The Sequence Info button displays a chart that depicts the path of the series with atomic Ex posure C alculations
C ontrolling Q uality
numbers indicated on the vertical axis on the left, and the number of neutrons shown along the Film Proce ssing
Vie wing R adiographs
bottom. Colored arrows represent alpha and beta decays. To return to the main user interface, R adiograph Inte rp-W e lds
click the "Dismiss" button. R adiograph Inte rp -
C astings

Initially, a selected series contains all parent material, and the amount is represented by a A dvanced Techniques
R e al-tim e R adiography
colored bar on a vertical logarithmic scale. Each line represents a factor of ten. In order to step C om pute d Tom ography
forward through the sequence by a specified number of years, you may type the appropriate XR SIM

number into the "Time Step" field and hit "Enter." A negative time step will backtrack through R e fe re nce s
the sequence.
Quizzes
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You may choose a step interval in years and progress through each step by pressing the "Enter"
key. The "Animate" button will automate the progress through the series. You can either choose
a time step before you animate or leave it at zero. If the time step is left at zero, the system will
choose time steps to optimize viewing performance.

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