Plate Glass for Shielding

[Douglas Simpkin <dsimpkin@execpc.com>]

Michelle S. Barry wrote:
>Does anyone have a breakdown of the constituents of plate glass?  I'm
>trying to determine it's ability to shield low energy x-rays.  Intuitively,
>I'm sure this will be more than sufficient, but I'd like to be able to pass
>on some information to the researcher.  Feel free to email me directly at
>the address below.

I calculated the transmission of broad diagnostic x-ray beams through plate
glass in Health Phys 56;151-164(1989). The atomic constituencies assumed
for plate glass were:

Density: 2.5 g/cm3

Fraction by weight:
Si02 		74.1%
Na2O2		13.2%
CaO		8.52%
MgO		3.7%
Fe2O3		0.11%
SO3		0.29%

This should equal fractional atomic compositions of:
O: 0.489
Na: 0.0990
Mg: 0.0146
Al: 0.0004
Si: 0.3382
S: 0.0015
K: 0.0001
Ca: 0.0555
Fe: 0.002

If you're interested in the broad beam x-ray spectral transmission, see the
above HP paper. Also see Simpkin, D.J. Transmission data for shielding
diagnostic x-ray facilities. Health Phys 68:704-709; 1995.

If you're interested in monoenergetic photon beam transmission, load these
values into Berger and Hubbell's excellent cross section calculation
program XCOM (at <http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/Xcom/Text/XCOM.html>).

Doug

Douglas J. Simpkin, Ph.D., DABR
St. Luke's Medical Center
2900 West Oklahoma Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53215
phone: (414)649-6457
fax: (414)649-5061
email: dsimpkin@execpc.com
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