Various Radiation Units
by arteitle on 07/26/03 at 04:16:50

Hi, and thanks for the extremely useful site. I know someone already suggested a Curies to Becquerels converter for radioactivity, but I also wanted to suggest converters for radiation exposure and dose. Unfortunately, they describe lots of different attributes, so converting from one to another sometimes requires making some assumptions. I've read that for practical (e.g. fallout shelter) purposes, Roentgens, Rads, and Rems can be considered equivalent. Here's what I've managed to cull from Google searches:

gamma exposure:
1 Roentgen (R) = 2.58 x 10^-4 C/kg of dry air
1 R = 1 esu/cm^3 of dry air
(1 esu = 1 statC = 3.3356 × 10^-10 C)

absorbed dose:
1 radiation absorbed dose (rad) = 100 erg/g = .01 J/kg
1 Gray (Gy) = 100 rad

equivalent dose:
1 Roentgen equivalent man (rem) = 1 rad x Q (quality factor)
1 Sievert (Sv) = 100 rem = 1 Gray x Q
(for gamma and beta radiation Q = 1)

radioactivity:
1 Curie (Ci) = 3.7 x 10^10 Becquerel (Bq)
1 Becquerel = 1 decay/s = 1 Hz
(1 g Radium = 1 Ci)

I'm not sure if these can be of any use, but hopefully they can. Thanks again for the great site.

Aaron T.

Re: Various Radiation Units
by Robert Fogt on 07/26/03 at 10:09:19

I've put this on my to-do list.  I'll see what I can come up with.

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