Premium
Radiation transmission data for radionuclides and materials relevant to brachytherapy facility shielding
Author(s) -
Papagiannis P.,
Baltas D.,
Granero D.,
PérezCalatayud J.,
Gimeno J.,
Ballester F.,
Venselaar J. L. M.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
medical physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.473
H-Index - 180
eISSN - 2473-4209
pISSN - 0094-2405
DOI - 10.1118/1.2986153
Subject(s) - brachytherapy , electromagnetic shielding , medical physics , dosimetry , radiation shielding , radionuclide , transmission (telecommunications) , nuclear engineering , environmental science , nuclear medicine , materials science , physics , nuclear physics , radiation therapy , medicine , computer science , radiology , engineering , composite material , telecommunications
To address the limited availability of radiation shielding data for brachytherapy as well as some disparity in existing data, Monte Carlo simulation was used to generate radiation transmission data for Co60 , Cs137 , Au198 , Ir192 , Yb169 , Tm170 , Cs131 , I125 , and Pd103 photons through concrete, stainless steel, lead, as well as lead glass and baryte concrete. Results accounting for the oblique incidence of radiation to the barrier, spectral variation with barrier thickness, and broad beam conditions in a realistic geometry are compared to corresponding data in the literature in terms of the half value layer (HVL) and tenth value layer (TVL) indices. It is also shown that radiation shielding calculations using HVL or TVL values could overestimate or underestimate the barrier thickness required to achieve a certain reduction in radiation transmission. This questions the use of HVL or TVL indices instead of the actual transmission data. Therefore, a three‐parameter model is fitted to results of this work to facilitate accurate and simple radiation shielding calculations.