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

SAFETY PRECAUTION
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 joules.
-5

DATA

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

Figure 1: Background Radiation\

Figure 2: Polonium (No Shielding)

Figure 4: Polonium (Cardboard

Shielding)

Figure 3: Polonium (Aluminum

Shielding)

Figure 8: Cobalt (No Shielding)

Figure 9: Cobalt (Aluminum
Shielding)

Figure 5: Strontium (No Shielding)

Figure 10: Cobalt (Cardboard

Shielding)
RESULTS

Figure 6: Strontium (Aluminum

Shielding)

Figure 7: Strontium (Cardboard

Shielding)

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.

Sour
ce

No
Shi
eldi
ng

Card
boar
d
Shie
ldin
g

Alu
min
um
Shie
ldin
g

Sta
nda
rd
Devi
atio
n

Backg 4.2
round

N/A

N/A

Poloni 4.8
um
(alph
a)

6.6

5.6

0.73
6357

Stront 50.2
ium
(beta)

46.6

39.2

4.57
918

Cobal
t
(gam
ma)

140.
4

38

43.8

46.9
6448

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.