Medical Vault, Concrete & Rebar Design

[WDM]

Does anyone know the reinforcing requirements for concrete vaults used for sheilding medical equipment's radiation?

Two foot thick walls are specified by the hospital for a High Density Radiation Vault and up to 6' thick walls around a Linear Accelerator Vault.

Also, is there a special high density concrete that should be used for this application?

Thanks,
WDM

 

[unclesyd]

Depending on your location the Hospital Radiation Protection Officer should have gotten with the architect and specified a concrete mix to achieve his required shielding and the structural engineer should have called out the steel. The density of concrete is very important in determining the thickness required for a given protection based on the source of the radiation. The density is usually very high along with special aggregates at times.
There are usually a lot of local standards (US) that have to taken care of in considering Radiation protection where the public is involved.

http://www.astm.org/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/DATABASE.CART/REDLINE_PAGES/C637.htm?U+mystore+vhdx9852

This is for aggregate.

http://www.cement.ca/cement.nsf/searchFinal/990793C3357C1C2685256D8A00546320?OpenDocument

This is general site with a lot of good software (PCA)

http://www.portcement.org/index.asp

 

[jheidt2543]

I've been involved in two &quot;specialty&quot; X-ray rooms for hospitals and for both, the Owner's X-ray equipment supplier had a Physicist design the protection scheme. They both were on the second floor and had about 5' of concrete for the floor, along with a 6&quot;-8&quot; thick steel plate. The walls were about 30&quot; thick and had a lead lining(Beto11 gets an attaboy for the Pb symbol for lead <g>!) of a thichness specified by the Physicist.

Just designing and building the concrete formwork for the structural slab was a fun task!