Radiation Shielding and Radiological Protection

This chapter deals with shielding against nonionizing radiation, specifically gamma rays and neutrons with energies less than about 10 MeV, and addresses the assessment of health effects from exposure to such radiation. The chapter begins with a discussion of how to characterize mathematically the energy and directional dependence of the radiation intensity and, similarly, the nature and description of radiation sources. What follows is a discussion of how neutrons and gamma rays interact with matter and how radiation doses of various types are deduced from radiation intensity and target characteristics. This discussion leads to a detailed description of radiation attenuation calculations and dose evaluations, first making use of the point-kernel methodology and then treating the special cases of “skyshine” and “albedo” dose calculations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of shielding materials, radiological assessments, and risk calculations.