Energy Absorption Coefficients
Many authors have measured or calculated "differential" photon interaction coefficients and published them in tabular form. These differential interaction coefficients quantify the probability of one of the many possible interactions of photons with the atoms of an exposed substance. For practical engineering calculations, two "total" interaction coefficients were derived as sums of all or some of the differential coefficients. The Energy Absorption Coefficient is one of these total interaction coefficients and is used for the calculation of the energy deposition and energy loss of a photon beam as it passes through an absorber. Several Standards, including those by NIST (Reference 1) and ASTM (Reference 2) contain tables of Energy Absorption Coefficients, their definition and methods of calculation, as well as recommendations on how these coefficients should be used in engineering calculations of dose desposition and dose shielding.
The program
PHOTKOEF,
written for microprocessors running under WINDOWS, calculates Energy Absorption coefficients and all other coefficients of practical interest for elements, chemical compounds, and for mixtures of elements and compounds. It uses as its data base published values of coefficients, and calculates coefficients for intermediate energy values by log-log interpolation of tabulated values.
References:
1.)
Energy Absorption Coefficients - NIST
2.)
ASTM Standard E666 - ASTM
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Edited on 20 March 2003 - E-mail to the
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