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Shielding Three Types of Radiation With Different Material

Sonya Mcguire, Devin Feilen, Steve Jobson
Animas High School
ABSTRACT
This lab was conducted to find how dangerous different types of
radiation are and what shields the different types. It was decided that tests
would include different forms of shielding and radiation. The problem that we
tested was to figure out was how two different materials could block
radiation and how they deflected the amount of radiation particles reaching
the geiger counter. Each form of radiation: alpha, beta and gamma reacts
with shielding differently, for example: we found that throughout our results
aluminum shielding tended to keep radiation levels below 50c/per minute
whereas no shielding produced radiation counts above 100c/per minute. The
significance for actually testing this is for future use is making sure that in an
event where radiation might be an issue, and shielding would be needed, the
right kind of shielding would be used offering the most protection possible
from different kinds of radiation. The overall question for this lab was seeing
how different kinds of (alpha, beta and gamma) radiation was affected by
placing different kinds of shielding around the substance.
CONCEPTS
Radiation
How radiation travels through different materials
Energy levels as they pertain to radiation
INTRODUCTION
In 1896 a French scientist by the name of Antoine Henri Becquerel was
attempting to see the effect of sun exposure on uranium. Becquerel did this
by letting the uranium sit in the sunlight for a certain amount of time, then
he would take the uranium out of the sun and put it on a piece of
photographic paper, as he expected the uranium emitted waves that had
been printed onto the paper. When his experiment was delayed because of
bad weather Becquerel put the uranium into a drawer and waited for the sun
to come back. When he took the uranium out to continue his research,
Antoine discovered that the uranium had been radiating without exposure to
the sunlight. Now scientists are figuring out how to protect us from this
radiation. But in order for a scientist to fix a problem, it is important to be
very familiar with radiation. Radiation is certain particles being emitted from
an atom, in order for the atom to become more stable. This can also be

called radioactive decay, and often a parent nuclide changes into daughter
nuclide. A parent nuclide is the atom in its unstable state, and the daughter
nuclide is the remaining nucleus after the reaction(s) occur. There are three
types of radiation that are all differentiated by what kind of particles are
released. Alpha radiation is what happens when an alpha particle is released
from the atom. The alpha particle is a helium nucleus, with two protons and
two neutrons, meaning that the daughter nuclides mass number decreases
by 4. Beta radiation happens when a neutron, which is made if a proton and
electron, loses its electron and turns into a proton. This changes the identity
of the atom, making it an element with one more proton. Gamma radiation
occurs when high amounts of electromagnetic waves are released in order
for an atom to become calmer. The dosage of these different types of
radiation is what makes them dangerous, if you are close you are getting a
higher dosage, if there is more, it is a higher dosage. The only exception is
that alpha decay is dangerous when you have it in your body. Each type of
radiation can be blocked by different substances, because of the differences
in the wavelength of the radiation. Alpha radiation can be blocked by cloth
and paper, due to the shortness of the wavelength, beta can be blocked by
thin sheets of metal, and gamma radiation, can be blocked by thick layers of
lead or several feet of concrete.
MATERIALS
Laptop Computer
Vernier Computer Interface
Logger Pro (Program)
Radiation Monitor (Geiger counter)
Paper Sheet
Cardboard Square (For use as shield)
Aluminum Square (For use as shield)
METHODS
Before you start download Logger Pro onto your computer. To set up,
after Logger Pro is downloaded, plug the radiation monitor into your
computer and open Logger Pro. Begin by measuring the background
radiation that is in the room, start by clicking

Wait 50 seconds

then click the button,

. Save this test by going to File, Save As,
then name it after the test conducted. Click on the Experiment drop down

menu and choose new data. Then take one of the three sources of radiation
and place it 5 cm away from the radiation monitor. Record the radiation
without any shielding. To set up the test with shielding, put the aluminum
halfway in between the source and radiation monitor (Figure 1). Remove the
aluminum and replace it with cardboard. Repeat everything that has been

done so far, with the other sources of radiation.

Figure 1: Setting up your radioactive substance with shielding
RADIATION SAMPLES
Polonium-210 (Alpha Source) 0.1uCI 138.4 days
Strontium-90 (Beta Source) 0.1uCI 28.8 years
Cobalt-60 (Gamma Source) 1uCI 5.27 years
SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
The radioactive substances we used werent particularly dangerous,
which is part of why we were allowed to use them. Alpha radiation, as long
as it isnt ingested, is protected against effectively by a sheet of notebook
paper. Skin and t-shirts are more than sufficient. Strontium-90 had a
radiation of 0.038 mRad/hr. 25 rad is the lowest dose of radiation to cause
clinically observable blood changes. A mRad is a thousandth of a rad. As
such, it didnt pose a major risk to us, as we spent less than an hour with it
unshielded. As for the Cobalt-60, well, 13.96 uR/hr translates to thirteen
millionths of a Roentgen per hour, which is equivalent to 0.0113 Rads. In
short, we were nowhere near the amount of radiation that it would take to do
us any sort of real damage. A Rad is the amount of radiation required for one
gram of matter to absorb 1.0 10-5 joules.
DISCUSSION

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effectiveness of

various forms of radiation shielding at a given range. As shown in Table 1,
only cardboard and aluminum sheets were tested. What this shows is that
cardboard shielding can be more effective than aluminum shielding in a
given set of circumstances. Experimental results confirmed that the shielding
would block most radiation, but there were some outliers. Alpha radiation
increased when shielded, which is likely indicative of an error when
calibrating the instrument, or fluctuations in background radiation. The
uncertainty gained by comparing the median value to the standard deviation
indicates that the alpha radiation has the highest uncertainty, based off the
difference between the median value and the standard deviation. Calculating
the uncertainty is difficult, given the non-qualitative nature of our original
assessment. More care when calibrating and positioning the device and the
radiation source would likely resolve most of the issues with the
inconsistency in alpha radiation levels, as would more isolation for testing. It
would be beneficial to test more forms of shielding beyond aluminum and
cardboard.

Figure 1 - Original Background

Radiation

Figure 2 - Cobalt (Aluminum Shielding)

Shielding)

Figure 4 - Cobalt (No Shielding)

Figure 3 - Cobalt (Cardboard

Figure 5 - Polonium (Aluminum Shielding)

Figure 6 - Polonium (Cardboard

Shielding)

Figure 7 - Polonium (No Shielding)

Figure 8 - Strontium (Aluminum Shielding) Figure 9 - Strontium (Cardboard

Shielding)

Figure 10 - Strontium (No Shielding)

Table 1: Radiation in Counts per Minute Averages

Source

No
Cardboard
Shielding Shielding

Aluminu
m
Shieldin
g

Standard
Deviation

Background

4.2

N/A

N/A

Polonium
(alpha)

4.8

6.6

5.6

0.736357

Strontium
(beta)

50.2

46.6

39.2

4.57918

10

Cobalt
(gamma)

140.4

38

43.8

46.96448

RESULTS
When looking at the data, you are able to see that in strontium and
cobalt, the value when there was no shielding was higher than the values
when there was shielding. In polonium, the radiation showed weaker
radioactivity when it wasnt shielded compared to when it was. Each
substance tested showed nearly no change with the differences in shielding
however when we took the shields away the radiation levels showed on the
geiger counter significantly went up. Certain radioactive substances have the
ability to pass through certain shields, but the substances tested didnt pass
through the shields that were tested. The standard deviation shows how
spread out the data is in each set of numbers. The higher the standard
deviation, the more the numbers vary.