Radiation Exposure Inside Reinforced Concrete Buildings at Nagasaki
Abstract
The biological effects on the residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki due to initial irradiation exposure during the nuclear attacks of World War II was recognized immediately as an important source of information. After the war, an extensive effort gathered data concerning the locations of individuals at the time of the attack and their subsequent medical histories. The data from personnel located in reinforced concrete buildings are particularly significant, since large groups of occupants received radiation injury without complications due to blast and thermal effects. In order to correlate the radiation dose with physiological effects, the dose to each individual must be calculated. Enough information about the construction of the buildings was available after the war to allow a radiation transport model to be constructed, but the accurate calculation of penetration into such large, thick walled three-dimensional structures was beyond the scope of computing technology until recently. Now, the availability of Cray vector computers and the development of a specially-constructed discrete ordinates transport code, TORT, have combined to allow the successful completion of such a study. This document describes the radiation transport calculations and tabulates the resulting doses by source component and individual case location. An extensive uncertainty analysis is also included. These data are to be used in another study as input to a formal statistical analysis, resulting in a new value for the LD50 dose, i.e., the dose at which the mortality risk is 50%.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA528365
Entities
People
- D. T. Ingersoll
- R. L. Childs
- W. A. Rhoades
Organizations
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory