School of Health Sciences - HSCI 534: Applied Health Physics

Description

This course provides lectures and case studies related to the application of radiation dosimetry and shielding principles to the practice of health physics, including shielding, environmental radiation, emergency response, decommissioning and decontamination, operational criteria for meeting ALARA exposure limits, internal/external dosimetry and radioactive waste management. Various applied areas in health physics such as reactor HP, accelerator HP and HP regulations will be covered.

Course Objectives:

Apply radiation dosimetry, shielding and basic health physics principles to real-world situations and problems encountered by radiation protection professionals. The course emphasizes problem solving and application of key ideas that are likely to be encountered in a variety of health physics specialty areas. Students are expected to utilize the concepts and principles learned in previous courses to address and dissect various case studies and problems that will be presented in the class.

Prerequisites:

HSCI 312. Authorized equivalent courses or consent of instructor may be used in satisfying course pre- and co-requisites.

Textbooks

No textbook is required. Students will mainly work with various industry documents provided on the course webpage.

For background reading the following textbooks are recommended:

• H. Cember. Introduction to Health Physics. 4^th Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008.
• Lamarsh, John R. Introduction to Nuclear Engineering. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1983.
• Faw, Richard E., and J. Kenneth Shultis. Radiological Assessment: Sources and Doses. La Grange Park: American Nuclear Society, 1999.

Topics covered include:

• Radiation quantities and units review
• Radiation shielding principles
• Environmental monitoring and dose models
• Reactor waste management
• Internal/External dosimetry
• Nuclear power accidents, radiological consequences and changes to regulations
• Regulations and industry guidelines
• Applications of ALARA
• Emergency response training
• Decommissioning and decontamination
• Accelerator health physics issues
• University health physics issues