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Organ doses from environmental exposures calculated using voxel phantoms of adults and children.
Phys. Med. Biol. 57, 5679-5713 (2012)
This paper presents effective and organ dose conversion coefficients for members of the public due to environmental external exposures, calculated using the ICRP adult male and female reference computational phantoms as well as voxel phantoms of a baby, two children and four adult individual phantoms--one male and three female, one of them pregnant. Dose conversion coefficients are given for source geometries representing environmental radiation exposures, i.e. whole body irradiations from a volume source in air, representing a radioactive cloud, a plane source in the ground at a depth of 0.5 g cm(-2), representing ground contamination by radioactive fall-out, and uniformly distributed natural sources in the ground. The organ dose conversion coefficients were calculated employing the Monte Carlo code EGSnrc simulating the photon transport in the voxel phantoms, and are given as effective and equivalent doses normalized to air kerma free-in-air at height 1 m above the ground in Sv Gy(-1). The findings showed that, in general, the smaller the body mass of the phantom, the higher the dose. The difference in effective dose between an adult and an infant is 80-90% at 50 keV and less than 40% above 100 keV. Furthermore, dose equivalent rates for photon exposures of several radionuclides for the above environmental exposures were calculated with the most recent nuclear decay data. Data are shown for effective dose, thyroid, colon and red bone marrow. The results are expected to facilitate regulation of exposure to radiation, relating activities of radionuclides distributed in air and ground to dose of the public due to external radiation as well as the investigation of the radiological effects of major radiation accidents such as the recent one in Fukushima and the decision making of several committees.
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Publication type
Article: Journal article
Document type
Scientific Article
Keywords
organ doses; environmental exposures; radioactive cloud; ground contamination; natural radionuclides; Conversion Coefficients; Gamma-Rays; Radiation Protection; Photon; Models; Female; Irradiation
Language
english
Publication Year
2012
HGF-reported in Year
2012
ISSN (print) / ISBN
0031-9155
e-ISSN
1361-6560
Journal
Physics in Medicine and Biology
Quellenangaben
Volume: 57,
Issue: 18,
Pages: 5679-5713
Publisher
Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP)
Publishing Place
Bristol
Reviewing status
Peer reviewed
POF-Topic(s)
30504 - Mechanisms of Genetic and Environmental Influences on Health and Disease
Research field(s)
Radiation Sciences
PSP Element(s)
G-503600-002
PubMed ID
22941937
WOS ID
WOS:000308859500002
Scopus ID
84862197150
Erfassungsdatum
2012-09-25