Paper

CALCULATION OF INDOOR EFFECTIVE DOSE FACTORS IN

ORNL PHANTOMS SERIES DUE TO NATURAL
RADIOACTIVITY IN BUILDING MATERIALS
D. Krstic and D. Nikezic*
AbstractIn this paper the effective dose in the age-dependent
ORNL phantoms series, due to naturally occurring radionu-
clides in building materials, was calculated. The absorbed
doses for various organs or human tissues have been calcu-
lated. The MCNP-4B computer code was used for this purpose.
The effective dose was calculated according to ICRP Publica-
tion 74. The obtained values of dose conversion factors for a
standard room are: 1.033, 0.752 and 0.0538 nSv h
1
per Bq
kg
1
for elements of the
238
U and
232
Th decay series and for the
40
K isotope, respectively. The values of effective dose agreed
generally with those found in the literature, although the
values estimated here for elements of the
238
U series were
higher in some cases.
Health Phys. 97(4):299302; 2009
Key words: dosimetry; effective dose; gamma radiation;
Monte Carlo
INTRODUCTION
NATURAL AND man-made sources of radiation result in
internal and external radiation exposure of the popula-
tion. Calculation of radiation dose from building materi-
als is an example of an important radiation protection
practice, such as the dose to persons in buildings from
members of the
238
U and
232
Th decay series and
40
K.
There are two approaches to dose calculation. The first
calculates the specific absorbed dose at a point inside a
room (in nGy h
1
per Bq kg
1
) (Koblinger 1978, 1984;
Ackers et al. 1984; Mustonen 1984; Mirza et al. 1991;
Ahmad et al. 1998; Maduar and Hiromoto 2004; Ade-
mola and Farai 2005; de Jong and van Dijk 2008) and a
conversion factor 0.7 Sv Gy
1
is used to obtain an
effective dose. The United Nations Scientific Committee
on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR 2000)
has recommended 0.7 Sv Gy
1
to convert absorbed dose
in air to the effective dose. The second approach calcu-
lates the absorbed dose of natural radionuclides in
individual phantom organs representing a mathematical
model of the human body followed by calculation of the
effective dose (Petoussi et al. 1991; Saito at al. 1998).
Organ doses for fetuses, babies, children, and adults from
environmental gamma rays were calculated by Petoussi
et al. (1991). The following three typical cases of
environmental sources were considered: semi-infinite
volume source in the air, infinite plane source in the
ground, and semi-infinite volume source in the ground.
For the organ dose calculation four anthropomorphic
phantoms were employed, representing different ages
and sexes: ADAM, EVA, CHILD, and BABY. A study
by Saito et al. (1998) documents an investigation of the
causes of variation of the effective dose per air kerma for
environmental gamma rays depending on the exposure
conditions; posture of human bodies, biases of environ-
mental source distributions, and body size were consid-
ered. Phantom organ to air dose ratios were obtained only
for six organs by Koblinger (1978).
In this paper, the effective dose for a number of
naturally occurring radionuclides in construction materi-
als was estimated using members of the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL) phantom series (Eckerman
et al. 1996) placed in geometries representing persons in
indoor structures.
METHODS
Members of the
238
U and
232
Th decay series and
40
K
are important gamma emitting sources occurring in
building materials. The elements of the two series emit
many photons (649 lines for
238
U and 318 lines for
232
Th)
with different probabilities, while
40
K emits gamma
photons with an energy of 1,460.83 keV in 11% of
disintegrations (energies and yields were taken from
LBL 2000). In the decay series, equilibrium of the
various progeny was assumed, and the effect of radon
emanation was not taken into account.
* University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Science, Department of
Physics, R. Domanovic 12, Kragujevac 34000, Serbia.
For correspondence contact: D. Nikezic at the above address, or
email at nikezic@kg.ac.rs.
(Manuscript accepted 5 May 2009)
0017-9078/09/0
Copyright 2009 Health Physics Society
299
In the geometrical modeling the room considered
was assumed to be rectangular. Windows and doors were
generally also omitted. We selected several rooms, with
areas of 5 4 m
2
, 5 3 m
2
, 4 3 m
2
, and 3 3 m
2
,
and height of 2.8 m. All walls were 20 cm thick and were
made of pure SiO
2
that has a density of 2.35 g cm
3
. All
walls, the floor, and the ceiling were considered to be
sources of photon radiation.
The ORNL phantoms series (Eckerman et al. 1996)
was used in this study; in total there were seven age-
dependent phantoms: adult male, adult female, age-15,
age-10, age-5, age-1, and newborn. The well known
MNCP-4B Monte Carlo code (Briesmeister 1997) was
used for photon transport from the source to individual
target organs. All organs of the human body were targets
(main organs as well as the remainder) (ICRP 1991,
1996). The coordinate origin was taken at the center of
the lower base of the trunk section of the phantom. The
procedure for dose calculation in red bone marrow and
the skeleton was described in a previous paper (Krstic
and Nikezic 2006). Input files for all ORNL phantoms
(Krstic and Nikezic 2007) were made for the room
dimensions given above. The f6 tally was used to
calculate the absorbed dose in units of MeV g
1
per
emitted photon in individual phantom organs. For
photon radiation, the radiation weighting factor is
unity, so the absorbed doses are numerically equal to
equivalent doses. Unit conversion was performed in
order to obtain equivalent doses for all organs in nGy
h
1
per Bq kg
1
. Based on the International Commis-
sion on Radiological Protection (ICRP) Publication 74
(ICRP 1996), the effective dose was calculated using
tissue weighting factors from ICRP Publication 60
(ICRP 1991), with the same factors applied for the
pediatric phantom series members (Saito et al. 1998).
Calculation of the effective dose (E) for an adult
phantom was performed with weighting between male
and female phantoms, according to the following
equation (ICRP 1996):
E w
breast
H
breast

Tbreast
w
T
H
T,m
H
T,f
2
,
(1)
where H
breast
and w
breast
are the equivalent dose and
weighting factor for the breast of the female phantom,
respectively. H
T,m
and H
T,f
are equivalent doses in male
and female phantoms respectively, and w
T
are the values
of the tissue weighting factors. Finally, unit conversion
was performed in order to express the dose conversion
factors in nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The effective doses obtained for all phantoms and
different room dimensions are presented in Table 1.
Higher doses were obtained for larger room dimensions.
A similar trend in the dose factors increase exists for all
radionuclides depending on the phantom age. The influ-
ence of body size on the effective dose value was
confirmed. Dose factors changed as expected, based on
phantom size; similar results were found by Saito et al.
(1998). For an adult phantom the dose factor is about
20% lower than one for a newborn phantom.
Comparison with results of other authors
In Table 2 absorbed dose rates for standard room
dimensions found in literature are presented. For
238
U the
value of 1.033 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
was obtained. In
Table 2 literature values in nGy h
1
per Bq kg
1
units are
given where a conversion factor of 0.7 Sv Gy
1
, as
recommended by UNSCEAR (2000), was used for con-
verting the absorbed dose rates in air to the effective
dose, i.e., in nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
. The result obtained in
this paper is higher than all literature values, in some
cases by a factor of 2 or more. The first reason for this is
that literature values were first calculated for a point and
conversion to the effective dose was performed by
multiplying the value with a factor of 0.7 Sv Gy
1
. The
second reason is that literature values were obtained for
only the most abundant photon emissions of
226
Ra, while
many more gamma lines were used in this work. In
Koblinger (1978) and Koblinger (1981), 24 and 20
gamma lines from the
238
U (
226
Ra) and
232
Th series were
used, respectively. In order to perform a comparison with
literature data, calculations were performed for a smaller
number of gamma rays for both
232
Th and
238
U series, i.e.,
Table 1. Effective dose factors for various room geometries and
various phantoms.
Geometry/wall thickness/
density Phantom
Effective dose
conversion factors
nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
238
U
232
Th
40
K
4 5 2.80 m
3
/20 cm/
2.35 g cm
3
(Standard room)
Adult 1.033 0.752 0.0538
Age-15 1.041 0.751 0.0539
Age-10 1.054 0.760 0.0546
Age-5 1.101 0.790 0.057
Age-1 1.211 0.860 0.062
Newborn 1.319 0.916 0.068
3 3 2.80 m
3
/20 cm/
2.35 g cm
3
Adult 0.820 0.612 0.044
3 4 2.80 m
3
/20 cm/
2.35 g cm
3
Adult 1.017 0.734 0.0532
3 5 2.80 m
3
/20 cm/
2.35 g cm
3
Adult 1.024 0.743 0.0535
300 Health Physics October 2009, Volume 97, Number 4
for
226
Ra (gamma rays used by Markkanen 1995). The
following values for dose conversion factors were ob-
tained: 0.498 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
for
238
U and 0.664 nSv
h
1
per Bq kg
1
for
232
Th. Reduction of the number of
lines changed the previous results and the values ob-
tained are in the range of literature values (Table 2).
The value of the dose factor obtained in this paper
for
232
Th is 0.752 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
. Results of other
authors are also recalculated in the same way, as it was
done above for
238
U, by multiplication with 0.7, and
results are given in Table 2. The result obtained in this
work for
232
Th agrees with literature values.
Koblinger (1978) obtained the value for the conver-
sion factor for
40
K of 0.0778 (in nGy h
1
per Bq kg
1
).
Multiplication with 0.7 Sv Gy
1
gives an effective dose
of 0.0545 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
. There are some differ-
ences in material density used in calculations performed
by different authors. Other authors also presented their
results in nGy h
1
per Bq kg
1
, which are recalculated
here by multiplication with 0.7 Sv Gy
1
. Results are
given in Table 2.
Calculation of conversion factors for the effective
dose per air kerma free-in-air
Conversion factors for the effective dose per air
kerma free-in-air were calculated and the results are
given in Sv Gy
1
. The kerma was calculated in air in a
sphere with a diameter of 10 cm at the height of 1 m
along the phantom vertical axis. The same tally f6 was
used for kerma calculations, but the absorbing material
was air (tissue was used for absorbed dose calculations).
Air kerma free-in-air is one of the main quantities used
for characterization of external irradiation. Results were
obtained for all phantoms for gamma radiation from
natural radionuclides in a standard room (Table 3). The
obtained values for an adult phantom were 0.6724, 0.693,
and 0.6719 (average 0.679) Sv Gy
1
for
238
U,
232
Th, and
40
K, respectively. A comparison of these results was
made with the values from Zankl et al. (1992), for
ADAM and EVA phantoms for irradiation from natural
radionuclides distributed uniformly in the ground. The
following values for conversion factors were obtained in
Zankl et al. (1992): 0.672, 0.695, and 0.709 (average
0.692) Sv Gy
1
. The recommended factor of 0.7 Sv Gy
1
(UNSCEAR 2000) can be applied only to an adult, while
this factor must be corrected for other population groups.
An increase in conversion factors with phantom age
reduction was noted in Table 3. For a newborn this factor
would be about 0.85 Sv Gy
1
. UNSCEAR (2000) rec-
ommends the value of 0.9 for newborns and 0.8 for
children.
CONCLUSION
In this paper conversion factors of effective doses
(in nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
) in the ORNL phantom series
(Eckerman et al. 1996) due to natural radioactivity in
building materials were calculated. Effective dose values
were calculated using estimates of doses to all organs,
rather than the use of dose to a single point, as has been
common in some studies. The obtained values of dose
conversion factors for a standard room are: 1.033, 0.752,
and 0.0538 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
for the
238
U series, the
elements of the
232
Th series, and the
40
K isotope, respec-
tively. The values of the effective dose factor for the
40
K
Table 2. Dose conversion factors reported in several studies.
Geometry/wall thickness Density (g cm
3
)
Effective dose
conversion factors
(nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
)
Reference
238
U
232
Th
40
K
4 5 2.80 m
3
/20 cm 2.5 (concrete) 0.644 0.716 0.0545 Koblinger 1978
2.32 (SiO
2
) 0.623 0.729 0.0545 Koblinger 1978
0.645 0.770 0.0564 Mustonen 1984
0.636 0.742 0.0537 Markkanen 1995
2.35 0.847 0.903 0.070 Mirza et al. 1991
0.668 0.846 0.0567 Ahmad et al. 1998
0.490 0.644 0.0504 Maduar and Hiromoto 2004
0.630 0.770 0.056 de Jong and van Dijk 2008
0.498 0.664 This work (limited number of decay energies)
1.033 0.752 0.0538 This work (all lines)
Table 3. Conversion factors for effective doses per air kerma
free-in-air in Sv Gy
1
.
Phantom
Conversion factor (Sv Gy
1
)
238
U
232
Th
40
K
Adult 0.672 0.693 0.672
Age-15 0.682 0.698 0.679
Age-10 0.694 0.701 0.692
Age-5 0.716 0.729 0.713
Age-1 0.788 0.794 0.786
Newborn 0.858 0.846 0.855
301 Calculation of indoor effective dose factors

D. KRSTIC AND D. NIKEZIC

isotope and the
232
Th series are in agreement with
literature data. The values for elements of the
238
U series
were larger than literature values.
In order to perform a comparison with literature
data, calculations for a smaller number of gamma lines
for both series were done. They were 23 lines for
238
U
and 26 lines for
232
Th as was done by Markkanen (1995).
The following values were obtained for the dose conver-
sion factors: 0.498 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
for
238
U and
0.664 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
for
232
Th. Markkanen (1995)
obtained the following somewhat larger results of 0.636
and 0.742 nSv h
1
per Bq kg
1
(the original Markkanens
data were recalculated with the factor 0.7 Sv Gy
1
to
obtain the same units for the sake of comparison). The
discrepancy may be explained by the different ap-
proaches used in this work and by Markkanen (1995),
who calculated the absorbed dose rate in a point while we
calculated dose in all organs of human phantom.
By using a smaller number of gamma lines we
obtained a smaller dose conversion factor for the
238
U
series than for
232
Th, which is common for other authors
(Table 2).
Calculation of the conversion factor for the air
kerma free-in-air was calculated in this work and the
value of 0.7 Sv Gy
1
was obtained for an adult phantom,
while this value needs to be corrected for other phan-
toms, especially newborns.
AcknowledgmentsThe authors would like to thank the Serbian Ministry
of Science, which supported this work through project 141023.
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302 Health Physics October 2009, Volume 97, Number 4