Assessment of Natural Radiation Exposure from Sand and Sediment Samples Obtained from Kuakata Beach Area in Bangladesh

Abstract

In Bangladesh, Kuakata Beach situated in Patuakhali district contains some in sand and sediment. In this paper the activity concentration and absorb dose of sand and sediment collected sand and sediment collected from Kuakuta Beach were measured. The activity concentrations of radionuclides and their respective annual effective dose rates, produced by 226Ra, 232Th, 40 K were measured using a High Purity Germanium (HPGe) detector of relative efficiency 40%. The measured absorbed dose rate was estimated to range from 30.50 nGy/h to 242.93 nGy/h with an average of 74.87 nGy/h. The outdoor annual effective dose varied between 0.22 mSv/year to 1.79 mSv/year with a mean of 0.55 mSv/year, which is higher than the world average outdoor annual effective dose, 0.07 mSv/year. The external hazard indices for the samples varied from 0.17 to 1.43 with the average value of 0.44. The average radium equivalent activity was calculated and found to be 161.40 Bq/kg which is less than the acceptable limit of world average value of 370 Bq/Kg. Despite the fact that some samples showed higher value than the world average value, in the average radium equivalent activity (Req) and External Hazard (Hex) index, the study found out that the sample in our analysis would cause no radiological harmful effect to human health. An indication that tourists to the Kuakata Beach site are safe from any radiological hazard.

Keywords: Background radiation, radium equivalent activity, absorb dose, effective dose, high purity germanium detector, radiological hazard

Cite this Article

Md. Mehedi Hassan, Md. Rezaul Karim, M. A. Momin, Md. Zakaria Chowdhury, K.M. Jalal Uddin Rumi. Assessment of Natural Radiation Exposure from Sand and Sediment Samples Obtained from Kuakata Beach Area in Bangladesh. Journal of Nuclear Engineering & Technology. 2018; 8(3): 18–26p.