58

THEORETICAL CALCULATIONS OF THE GAMMA RADIATION SPECTRUM, ETC.

TRE SHORTER-TERM BIOLOGICAL HAZARDS OF A FALLOUT FIELD

target paramoters.

Unfortunately, however,

fallout gamma sources are not constant nor
even easily predictable.
For different weapons types the very nature

of the radioactive materials available for fallout

may vary.

For example, some devices may

produce significantly large vields of induced

activities in addition to fission products.

and so on.

However, even for a given weapon type, soil

and nieterological conditions will vastly alter

Hitt)

0.39

O08

«Ot

Og

0.20

O28

ENERGY (Mev)

0.20

Froure 19.--Plane isotropic source, differential energy spectrum, 3 feed above the plane, Ey==0.855 Mev.

feot above a plane contaminated with a source
emitting monoenergetic photons of 0.255 Mov.
Despite the proximity to the “ground,” much

of the radiation reaching the detector position
originates at considerable distances and is
significantly degraded by a long path through
air before reaching the detector. The abrupt
peak and discontinuity seen on this chart
represent the maximum energy loss achievable
in a single Compton interaction: namely, the
case where the secondary photon is emitted at
180° to the path of the primary photon.
There are in Figure 20 the integral dose and
energy spectra corresponding to the differential
dose spectrum of Figure 19. Similer spectra
are calculable for other source cnergies, of
course, and from these solutions interpolation
curves can be drawnup.

In order to calculate crudely dose spectra
from fallout once the source onergies are’

known, an interpolation curve such as that of
Figure 21 can be used. Yts use and interpretation are the same as for the case of interpo-

lation curves for pointisotropic gamma sources,
as discussed earlier.

0.10

With a sample source spectrum similar to the
one applied before to the point source case, but

now modified to fit the plane source orfallout

case, the integral dose spectrum of Figure 22
was generated. For the ehergetic sample

F(t,B) » Integral Bueray

D(t,Z) « Integral pose

source used, there is relatively little degraded
radiation received by the gamma detector.
The next step would logically appear to be

O18

analogous to the procedure applied to the

initial gamma case: that is, normalization of
fallout source spectra to actual weapon or

o20

O25

ENERGY (Mev)
Fraurn 20,-—Plone isotropic source, integral energy and dose spectra, 3 feet above the plane, Ey=0.255 Mev,
448029 O-—58-——--5

So-

called “clean’* weapons will producerelatively

few fission products and may produce comparateely siguificant induced activities from soil—

0.85

Q

59

Select target paragraph3