ERHS 531 Nuclear Instruments and Measurements

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Syllabus
Spring
MRB119
Instructor Name(s): Tom Johnson
Instructor Contact Information: Thomas.E.Johnson@colostate.edu, 491-0563
Office Hours: M-F 8:00-9:00 and by appointment
Class hours: Thursdays from 8:00 am - 11:00 am, MRB 119

Textbook(s): G.F. Knoll, Radiation Detection and Measurement (Required)

You will be REQUIRED to seek outside references for this class but you are not required to purchase these references. They are all available from the library or on special loan from the instructor.

The references include, but are not limited to:

Cember : Introduction to Health Physics by Herman Cember
Gollnick: Basic Radiation Protection Technology by Daniel Gollnick
NCRP: NCRP Report 130, 125, 122, 112, 106, 101, 95, 94, 93 and others.
ICRU: International Commission on Radiological Units
Moe: Operational Health Physics by H.J. Moe (Published by DOE)
MARSSIM: Multi-Agency Radiation Survey & Site Investigation Manual
CFR: Code of Federal Regulations (especially 10CFR20, 49CFR173)

Course Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

Obtain practical experience in solving applied health physics problems

Apply knowledge of health physics and statistics

Form a hypothesis, design and conduct experiments, and analyze and interpret data

Identify and solve health physics problems

Use techniques and skills, modern scientific instrumentation necessary for professional practice

Class Schedule
(Note: This schedule is tentative, and subject to change, depending on availability of equipment and sources.)

Date	Day	Topic	Reading	Instructor
Week 1	1	Counting Statistics	Knoll, Ch.3, Cember Ch. 9	Johnson
Week2	2	Instrument Components		Sampier
Week 3	3	GM Detectors	Knoll, Ch. 3	Johnson
Week 4	4	Beta counting and backscatter	Knoll	Johnson
Week 5	5	NaI detectors	Knoll	Johnson
Week 6	6	Comparison of NaI and GM detectors		Johnson
Week 6	6	Gas Flow proportional counter	Gollnick, Moe	Johnson
Week 7	7	Liquid Scintillation	Gollnick	Johnson
Week 8	8	Midterm Exam
Week 9	9	HPGe spectroscopy	Knoll, Gollnick	Johnson
Week 10	10	Activation lab	Knoll, Gollnick, Moe, Cember	USGS
Week 11	11	Portable instrumentation, contamination detection lab	Knoll, Gollnick	Johnson
Week 12	12	Surface barrier detector and Alpha Spectroscopy	Knoll	Johnson
Week 13	13	Air sampling	Cember, Gollnick, Moe	Johnson
Week 14	14	Unknown detection		Johnson
Week 15	15	Presentations		Students
Week 16	16	Final Exam

Grading
A = 90% B = 80% C = 70% D = 60% F = < 59%

Activity	Percent of Total
Weekly pre-class pop Quizzes	10% (includes both oral and written)
Lab Reports	40%
Mid term exam	15%
Final Exam	15%
Summary Paper/presentation	10%
Attendance/participation	10%

Lab

Experiments will be performed usually in groups of two or four. You should choose a laboratory partner. For most laboratory periods there will be a brief discussion and explanation of the experiment to be performed. A quiz may also be given (probably will) at the beginning of each laboratory period covering last week's lab (or a lab in which no quiz was given). There MAY be some experiments or parts of experiments that cannot be adequately done as a group within the scheduled laboratory period. For these, you and your partner (or small group) will need to schedule a time during the week to do the work (when I am also available). The extra time spent outside of the scheduled laboratory will be compensated one way or another. In some instances, there will be weeks without labs, or small groups will alternate between weeks to perform labs due to insufficient numbers of instruments. Lab attendance is mandatory. See me if it is necessary for you to miss a lab for any reason. Labs can not be made up unless permission is obtained prior to the lab.

The following rules apply to absences and late reports:
1. Excused absentees may hand in their reports 1 week after the original due date without penalty.
2. Unexcused absentees who submit reports will have their final grade reduced by 2.5 percentage points.
3. Unexcused absentees who do not submit reports will have their final grade reduced by 5.0 percentage points.
4. Late lab reports will result in the reduction of the final grade by 2 percentage points for each week late.

Lab Reports

Each student is required to submit a report for each lab performed. Lab reports are due one week after the experimental work is completed. They are to be handed in at the beginning of the next lab period. If a student forgets to bring in the lab report to class, it may be submitted by the end of the day (4:00 PM MST) without penalty. The report should be submitted directly to me either electronically or on paper. Late labs will be penalized one letter grade per 24 hour period late into my hands. This means if I leave town for two days and you are only one day late your grade will STILL be reduced by two letter grades unless submitted via email with a verifiable time stamp. Failure to submit one lab will result in a "C" or lower grade for the class. Failure to submit two labs will result in FAILURE OF THIS CLASS.

Lab reports should be neat, organized, and concise. It is preferred that your reports be typed, except where impractical.

An ideal lab report should consist of:

1) A title sheet that contains:
• title of the experiment
• day and date of experiment
• lab section
• your name
• partner's name when working in pairs
2) Brief description of procedure
3) Neatly tabulated data
4) Calculations whenever necessary
5) Graphs if necessary
6) Results and Conclusions
7) Answers to questions, if any, on the information sheet
8) Comments or reasons for anomalous data obtained

You may work on the reports with your lab partners, and you MAY submit a single report with your lab partner BUT you will both get the same grade for the report and both names must appear on the report! Exams will NOT be given with lab partners, you must take all exams without any outside help whatsoever. For take home exams, you may feel free to use any reference materials that are available. If you choose to excerpt any information in your report, I expect you to reference it properly, especially if it is from the world wide web. Plagiarism will not be tolerated, and will be considered cheating. If you would like to reference more than a sentence or two, consider attaching the appropriate article or attaching the relevant information from the web to your report, rather than misleading anyone as to the authorship.

This class (and labs) requires students to seek references outside the textbook. The use of reference books such as ICRP 38, the CRC Handbook, The Radiological Health Handbook, and ICRP 23 will be necessary to complete the homework problems.

You will be REQUIRED to read assignments as well as the lab PRIOR to class and be prepared to conduct experiments at the start of class. A QUIZ may be held immediately upon the start of each class the covers the reading materials. Additional Pop Quizzes may be administered on an ad hoc basis and will be averaged into the pre-class quizzes. The quizzes and exams may be written, ORAL, PRATICAL or some combination of all three. All materials are cumulative, so exams, quizzes, labs and any other work will require that you recall and understand ALL previous materials.

Cheating will not be tolerated. The first time you are caught cheating you will get a ZERO for the task (exam, quiz, plagiarism on a paper or any other task). Integrity is the cornerstone of all health physics and any infraction, however slight, is not excusable for any reason. If another is found to be complicit in cheating, they too will receive a zero. If you are discovered to be cheating a second time you will receive a failing grade for the class. The Course Director will make the determination if a student has been cheating.

Summary Paper and Presentation
A summary paper and presentation is due at the end of class. It must be typed or sent electronically and the presentation will be for the entire class. The presentation will be 10 minutes long and cover the same material as specified for the paper. The paper will cover the following:

• Theory of how the detector operates.
• Typical operating parameters and what the detector is optimally designed to detect.
• Operational considerations such as high background and interferences.
• Basic limitations of the equipment and things that impact the LLD and MDA.

Please notify the instructor which system you choose to present, so there is no duplication. You can choose from the following systems, or pick an additional system with instructor approval.

• Surface Barrier Detectors
• Phoswich detectors
• ZnS scintillation detectors
• Plastic scintillation detectors
• Any tritium detection technique
• FIDLER detection systems
• BF3 detectors
• Rudolph or Long counters
• Fission detectors
• SiLi detector
• Solid State diode detectors

 

Contact Information:

Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences
1681 Campus Delivery
Fort Collins, CO 80523

Phone: 970-491-7038
Fax: 970-491-2940