Monte Carlo simulation of indoor external exposure due to gamma-emitting radionuclides in building materials

Global interest in sustainable and green building design has been increasing in the last few decades. This interest is strengthened by the fact that sustainable measures help in reducing negative social and environmental impacts of buildings. For that, this paper aims to develop a mixed integer optimization model that aids architects/designers and owner representatives during design stage in selecting building materials taking into consideration costs and risks that are involved in the selection process. The model is developed as a simulation optimization tool based on the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for new construction. The developed model allows deterministic and probabilistic cost analysis of various design alternatives. In addition, it identifies the least possible cost to gain the LEED credits and the risks associated with materials’ quantities and materials’ unit prices. To illustrate the use of the proposed tool, a case study of an office building project constructed in Egypt is presented. An integrated Fuzzy Monte Carlo Simulation (FMCS) analysis is performed to account for the associated risks of using new materials in the considered case study. The proposed model is capable to capture the cost uncertainty of building materials and to identify the cost and sustainability performance of various building materials by relating the LEED rating system for new construction.

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Electron Scattering in Solids

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100133618 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 4-5

Author(s):

Ryuichi Shimizu ◽

Ze-Jun Ding

Keyword(s):

Monte Carlo Simulation ◽

Monte Carlo ◽

Angular Distribution ◽

Elastic Scattering ◽

Electron Scattering ◽

Cross Sections ◽

Expansion Method ◽

Electron Excitation ◽

Partial Wave Expansion ◽

Backscattered Electrons

Monte Carlo simulation has been becoming most powerful tool to describe the electron scattering in solids, leading to more comprehensive understanding of the complicated mechanism of generation of various types of signals for microbeam analysis.The present paper proposes a practical model for the Monte Carlo simulation of scattering processes of a penetrating electron and the generation of the slow secondaries in solids. The model is based on the combined use of Gryzinski’s inner-shell electron excitation function and the dielectric function for taking into account the valence electron contribution in inelastic scattering processes, while the cross-sections derived by partial wave expansion method are used for describing elastic scattering processes. An improvement of the use of this elastic scattering cross-section can be seen in the success to describe the anisotropy of angular distribution of elastically backscattered electrons from Au in low energy region, shown in Fig.l. Fig.l(a) shows the elastic cross-sections of 600 eV electron for single Au-atom, clearly indicating that the angular distribution is no more smooth as expected from Rutherford scattering formula, but has the socalled lobes appearing at the large scattering angle.

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Determination of Stoichiometry of GaAs Component in (Gaas)Ge Epitaxially Grown Thin Films by Electron Microprobe X-Ray Analysis

Proceedings, annual meeting, Electron Microscopy Society of America ◽

10.1017/s0424820100134922 ◽

1990 ◽

Vol 48 (2) ◽

pp. 264-265

Author(s):

D. R. Liu ◽

S. S. Shinozaki ◽

R. J. Baird

Keyword(s):

Thin Film ◽

Thin Films ◽

Monte Carlo Simulation ◽

Monte Carlo ◽

Compound Semiconductors ◽

Energy Dispersive Analysis ◽

X Ray ◽

Metastable Alloys ◽

Lower Voltage

The epitaxially grown (GaAs)Ge thin film has been arousing much interest because it is one of metastable alloys of III-V compound semiconductors with germanium and a possible candidate in optoelectronic applications. It is important to be able to accurately determine the composition of the film, particularly whether or not the GaAs component is in stoichiometry, but x-ray energy dispersive analysis (EDS) cannot meet this need. The thickness of the film is usually about 0.5-1.5 μm. If Kα peaks are used for quantification, the accelerating voltage must be more than 10 kV in order for these peaks to be excited. Under this voltage, the generation depth of x-ray photons approaches 1 μm, as evidenced by a Monte Carlo simulation and actual x-ray intensity measurement as discussed below. If a lower voltage is used to reduce the generation depth, their L peaks have to be used. But these L peaks actually are merged as one big hump simply because the atomic numbers of these three elements are relatively small and close together, and the EDS energy resolution is limited.

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