Radiation Protection Glossary

A radiation protection glossary for Radiation Protection Supervisors (RPS), Radiation Protection Advisers (RPA) and anyone else interesting in radiation safety terms and definitions. The glossary is a mixture of health physics , phrases related to radiation protection legislation, transport, practical safety, technical terms and similar.

Search the Glossary by either clicking on a letter or typing a keyword into the search box. This glossary is relational so when looking at one term you can click through to other related terms as required.

For formal advice, see our Radiation Protection Adviser pages. 

Actinides

Actinides are a transition group between actinium and lawrencium (inclusive). The group includes actinium, thorium , protactinium , uranium , neptunium , plutonium , americium , curium , californium etc. The members of the group are called actinides after the first in the series and they are all radioactive. Of the group, only thorium, uranium, plutonium, americium and californium are significant as the others are only produced artificially and have a relatively short Half-Life. The radiologically significant members all have much longer half-life's (e.g. plutonium-239 is in excess of 24,000 years) and are all Alpha Emitters. This means they have the potential to cause a significant Internal Radiation hazard through Inhalation and Ingestion.

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