Assessment of Natural Radioactivity Levels and Radiological Hazards in Building Materials

Abstract

Radioactivity of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K were measured in a total of 92 samples, including eight commonly used types of building materials that were obtained from local manufacturers and suppliers in Beijing. Concentrations were determined using high-purity germanium gamma-ray spectrometry. The 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K activity concentrations in all samples varied from 10.1 to 661, 3.3 to 555 and 3.2 to 2945 Bq per kg with an average of 127.8, 114.8, and 701.5 Bq per kg, respectively. The potential radiological hazards were estimated by calculating the absorbed dose rate (D), radium equivalent activity (Raeq), external hazard (Hex), and internal hazard (Hin) indices. The investigated building materials were classified into different types according to the radioactivity levels. Results from this research will provide a reference for the acquisition, sales, and use of building materials. Attention should be paid to the use of coal cinder brick, ceramic, and granite in the construction of dwellings.

Natural radioactivity and radiological risks of common building materials used in Semnan Province dwellings, Iran

“…The ranges of activity concentrations of 226 Ra, 232 Th, and 40 K for samples of brick and sand recorded in this study are comparable to the values obtained in Egypt and India (Medhat 2009;Ravisankar et al 2014), while results obtained for cement are comparable to those measured in Nigeria (Agbalagba et al 2014). The activity concentrations of these radionuclides measured in the samples of gypsum and granite are also comparable with results from other Iranian studies (Mehdizadeh et al 2011;Ashrafi and Jahanbakhsh 2019), while the results obtained for ceramic are comparable to Serbian (Kuzmanović et al 2020) but dramatically lower than those from China and Saudi Arabia (Tuo et al 2020;Al-Sewaidan 2019). The activity concentrations of these radionuclides for the samples of tile and marble were higher compared to results from Italy (Righi and Bruzzi 2006).…”

Using Geiger Dosimetry EKO-C Device to Detect Ionizing Radiation Emissions from Building Materials

“…Each sample was submitted to the testing procedure three times to determine the mean cumulative radiation dose. The cumulative radiation dose I (mSv•yr −1 ) was used to assess the radioactivity of the material [13][14][15]20]. Its purpose is to determine the radioactivity of materials.…”

“…It suggests to base radioactivity controls of building materials on a cumulative dose criteria for control and an exemption level. RP112 proposes that a cumulative dose should be chosen on a national basis in the range 0.3-1 mSv•yr −1 of excess whole gamma dose to that received outdoors [13,19,20].…”

“…This system represents 30% efficiency relative to 3 × 3 of NaI crystal and resolution 1.80 keV (FWHM) at 1.33 MeV. GENIE-2000 software was used for peak analysis [19,20].…”

Radiological Effects of Fly Ash as Concrete Additive: A Study in Vietnam

“…Therefore, building materials made from industrial waste such as fly ash and brick and their practical application should be investigated, evaluated and subjected to different documents provided by IAEA -474 (Ishimori et al, 2013 andICRP, 2017). Many authors have developed different methods and techniques to determine the radioactivity released from raw building materials (Ali et al, 1996;Vanasundari et al 2012;Solak et al, 2014;Asaduzzaman et al, 2015;Tuo et al, 2020).…”