1. NAME AND TITLE OF DATA LIBRARY

 NUCDECAY: Nuclear Decay Data for Radiation Dosimetry Calculations for ICRP and MIRD.
 
 

2. NAME AND TITLE OF DATA RETRIEVAL PROGRAMS

 DEXRAX: Extracts decay data from the library for radionuclide(s) specified by the user.
 
 

3. CONTRIBUTOR

 Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
 
 

4. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND INFORMATION

 The Dosimetry Research Group (DRG) of the Health Sciences Research Division at ORNL has for several years maintained data bases of nuclear decay data for use in dosimetric calculations. The data on mean and unique energy plus intensity have been previously published, in abridged form, in Publication 38 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP 1983) and a monograph1 for the Medical Internal Radiation Dose (MIRD) Committee of the Society of Nuclear Medicine; but the unabridged data included here and the beta spectra have not been previously published.  Newer decay data are available in the DLC-213/DECDC data package.
 
 

5. APPLICATION OF THE DATA

 This data base has been designed to address the needs in medical, environmental, and occupational radiation protection. Calculations of the spatial distribution of absorbed dose (depth-dose) requires information on the beta spectra, and these are compiled in a separate data file also included here. NUCDECAY is required by the CCC-620/SEECAL program to calculate age-dependent specific effective energies.
 
 

6. SOURCE AND SCOPE OF DATA

 The unabridged data used in preparing ICRP Publication 38 and a monograph of the MIRD Committee are distributed in electronic form in this package. The data are assembled in two collections. The collection referred to as ICRP38 consists of data on the energies and intensities of radiations emitted by the 825 radionuclides reported, although abridged, in ICRP Publication 38 plus an additional 13 radionuclides evaluated during preparation of a monograph for the MIRD Committee. The second collection, denoted as MIRD, contains data for the 242 radionuclides in the MIRD monograph noted above. Each collection consists of three ASCII files:

 (1) the index file (ICRP38.IDX or MIRD.IDX) is a sorted list of the radionuclides with pointers into the data files.

 (2) the radiation file (ICRP38.RAD or MIRD.RAD) contains data on the energies and intensities of the emitted radiations.

 (3) the beta spectra file (ICRP38.BET or MIRD.BET) contains the spectra for all beta emitters in the collection.
 
 

7. DISCUSSION OF THE DATA RETRIEVAL PROGRAM

 Four utility codes are provided. The code DEXRAX is used to extract the decay data from the library for radionuclide(s) specified for the user. The utility CHAIN lists the decay chain headed by a user-specified radionuclide. The RADLINE code identifies radionuclides which emit alpha or photon radiations of a user-specified energy. The executables and most of the source codes are provided. The Microsoft Fortran 5 compiler was used to compile the CHAINS code and the READDEC portion of the DEXRAX code. The full source for DEXRAX is not provided as that implementation must be linked with two special libraries. The source code is provided for a QBASIC version of the utility RADSUM. This version of RADSUM does include plotting of the beta spectra or computations of the gamma constant. Other utilities were written in Microsoft BASIC Professional Development System.
 
 

8. DATA FORMAT AND COMPUTER

 ASCII; PC 386. (D00172/PC386/01)

9. TYPICAL RUNNING TIME

 The codes are interactive.
 
 

10. REFERENCES

 a. Documentation available with library

 K. F. Eckerman, R. J. Westfall, J. C. Ryman, M. Cristy, "Nuclear Decay Data files of the Dosimetry Research Group," ORNL/TM-12350 (December 1993).

 K. F. Eckerman, R. J. Westfall, J. C. Ryman, and M. Cristy, "Availability of Nuclear Decay Data in Electronic Form, Including Beta Spectra not Previously Published," Health Phys. 67(4):338-345 (1994).

b. Other useful documentation

 D. Weber, K. F. Eckerman, L. T. Dillman, and J. C. Ryman, "MIRD: Radionuclide Data and Decay Schemes," Society of Nuclear Medicine, New York (1989).
 
 

11. CONTENTS OF LIBRARY

 Included are the referenced documents and two DS/HD 3.5-in. (1.44 MB) diskette written in compressed DOS files which include the data library, the installation code, and the utility codes.
 
 

12. DATE OF ABSTRACT

 November 1994; revised May 1995.
 
 

KEYWORDS: BETA-RAY SPECTRA; MICROCOMPUTER; RADIOACTIVE DECAY SPECTRA; ELECTRON SPECTRA; EXTERNAL DOSE; INTERNAL DOSE; RADIONUCLIDES