The Shielding of Beta Radiation

By Philip Wiley* and, Ian Duthie*

*Animas High School

Abstract:
The motivation behind the lab test was to determine which common
household substance was the most effective at shielding radiation.
Lead was also tested along with the more common materials in an
effort to determine a reference point for what effective radiation
shielding would look like. It was hypothesised that lead would be the
most effective shielding material, it was not- instead what was
hypothesised to be the weakest shielding material, cotton fabric, was
by far the most effective. Despite the conclusive results, the validity of
the experiment is still doubted for a number of reasons. The sizes of
the shielding materials were not standardized which led to the
corruption of the quantitative beta absorption data.
Introduction:
Radiation and the shielding thereof is an issue of increasing importance
in our modern world. Increased doses of radiation can come from Xrays, plane flights, and even from where one lives. All of these and
many others different sources emit different types of radiation
including alpha, beta, and gamma radiations. Gamma decay releases
photons or light particles, Alpha decay releases alpha particles
consisting of protons and neutrons, and Beta decay causes neutrons or
protons to transform into the other; this particular process then goes
on to release charged electrons.
There is also Nuclear radiation, which is the type emitted by nuclear
power plants. Neutrons are released through this type of nuclear
reaction. Beta decay radiation is the type used in this experiment.
Since the particles released through nuclear radiation are a size
between Alpha and Beta radiation it was thought that materials that
proved effective in blocking the Beta might also prove to do the same
with the neutrons released from nuclear power use.
Common household substances that were tested included wood, a
cotton-polyester blend, lead, cardboard, acrylic, and polyurethane. Of
these substances, it was hypothesized that lead would be the most
effective shield while; the cotton-polyester blend would be the least
effective for use as shielding. The effectiveness of the shielding is
defined as the amount of beta radiation absorbed by the shield.
Hazards:
Students worked with radioactive substances and were thus slightly
exposed, however to prevent and negative effects, the radioactive
2

substances were encased in a protective material and handled with

tweezers. A very minute amount of the radioactive substance was
used and, when not in use, it was stored in a lead tube. Because of
these precautions only a dose of 1.57E-007 millirems per hour.
Methods:
The purpose of this experiment was to test household substances for
the property of radiation shielding. For the purpose of this, a source of
beta radiation, Strontium-90, was used. This radiation source was
consistently placed ten centimeters away from the Geiger counter
used to measure the number of radioactive particles that breached the
shielding used. As a control, no shielding was used. After that, lead,
wood, plastic, cardboard, acrylic, and a cotton-polyester blend were
tested for their ability to block beta radiation by being placed
approximately five centimeters between the source and the Geiger
counter. Each then endured a fifty-second testing period.
Results and Discussion:
Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 1 shows the same data as figure 2 albeit refined to the point
where the data is consistent on a per millimeter basis. For the sake of
accuracy, all of the conclusions drawn are based off of the per
millimeter data.
To obtain this specific set of data the amount of background radiation
was found. The the number of radioactive particles absorbed was
subtracted from the background radiation to determine the amount of
particles that were blocked.
Lead blocked the beta radiation well, but according to the results its
effectiveness was greatly overshot by that of the cotton polyester
fabric- which was the most effective at blocking beta particle radiation.
The hypothesis that the cotton polyester fabric would be the least
efficient at blocking beta particle radiation, and lead would be the most
efficient was disproved. This looks strange on paper but behaves
exactly this way in practice, cotton polyester fabric blocks more beta
radiation per millimeter than lead.
The quantitative disparities between materials in the actual test should
be kept in mind. Research has suggested that after a particular width,
any more material on top of what is necessary does nothing to reduce
the amount of radiation being absorbed. Because all of our materials
were of varying widths, this fact alone could render our experiment
invalid. Because of this, the experiment would be improved by
standardized width of radiation shielding materials. This change would
validate the integrity of the experiment.