Radiation Protection, Dosimetry and Shielding Assessment

2
Georges Chahni
November 2022

Dosimetry

Figure 1: Energy deposition and transfer in mass of air, δm.

Absorbed Dose
The absorbed dose is energy absorbed per unit mass and so is:

E4 + E5 + E6′
Absorbed dose = Gy (1)
∆m
This does not include the photon energies as they do not constitute absorption, rather energy lost and does not
include the bremstrahlung either.

Air-kerma
The KERMA is a measure of the Kinetic Energy released into matter per unit mass due to ionising radiation. In
this case it would represent dE
dm where dm in our case is the mass of air ∆m and dET r is the transferred within the
Tr

unit mass.

E4 + E5 + E6′ + E6′′ + E6′′′

KERM A = Gy (2)
∆m
KERMA includes the energies due to bremstrahlung even though it occurs outside the unit mass as the Bremstrahlung
is produced by the interaction of the charged particles within the material. This is considered to be part of the
energy transferred to the material despite the fact that it is outside the unit mass thus E6′′ + E6′′′ are included.

1
Exposure
The exposure is a measure of the electric charge(dQ) that is deposited in a material element(dm) by ionizing
dQ
radiation E = dm . Exposure - like absorbed dose - does not include any energy which may later be re-irradiated due
to bremsstrahlung.
e(J4 + J5 + J6′ + J6′′ )
Exposure = C.kg −1 (3)
∆m

Shielding
I
To calculate the fraction of gamma rays that do not interact with the bismuth sheet given only one interaction can
happen per gamma ray, we can use the Beer-Lambert law probabilistically to measure how many are unattenuated/
untouched and thus contribute to the intensity. We can consider the total cross section as the sum of the Compton
Scattering (CS) and Photoelectric cross sections and calculate the mass attenuation coefficient:

NA × σtot 6.023 × 1023 × 1000 × σtot

µ= = → µ = 2.88181 × 1021 × (16.77 + 21.03).
Atomic M ass 209
The 1000 factor is to keep the units in S.I. as the conversion above gives g and not kg. The Beer-Lambert formula
gives the interaction probability as:
I
Ptot = = exp(−µρx).
I0
Plugging in values for the cross sections then gives:
I
Ptot = = exp(−2.88181 × 1021 × 37.8 × 10−28 × 9780 × 1000 × 0.005) = 0.587029.
I0
The probability of no interaction (Q) occuring is then:

Qtot = 1 − Ptot = 41.29% (4)

II
To calculate the fraction of incident gammas that are not absorbed by the sheet/ are attenuated, we need to realize
this would only involve the photoelectric effect and thus its cross section (σtot = σP E = 16.77b); the question specifies
absorption and only one interaction per gamma ray. Using the same principles as above:
NA × σ P E
µ= .
Atomic M ass
The Beer-Lambert formula then gives:

Ptot = exp(−2.88181 × 1021 × 16.77 × 10−28 × 9780 × 1000 × 0.005) = 0.789525. (5)
Therefore, about 21.04% of the incident gammas are not absorbed by the sheet and could contribute to the dose.