Fluence Evaluations For Applications of In Situ Gamma-Ray Spectrometry in Non-Flat Terrain

Evaluations of gamma-ray fluence are made for source geometries that depart from the flat ground geometry that is used in standard applications of in situ spectrometry. Geometries considered include uniform source distributions for soil mounds on top of flat terrain, cylindrical wells, and rectangular trenches. The results indicate that scaling the standard fluence values for flat terrain by the ratio of solid angle subtended by the soil to 2π leads to fluence estimates that are accurate to within a few percent. Practical applications of in situ spectrometry in non-flat terrain also appears to be simplified by the fact that the angular correction factor for a typical coaxial detector in these geometries may typically be about the same as that computed for flat ground.