Determination of the Radiation Cancer Risk for Workers in Some Factories of Building Materials

The main aim of this work is to estimate the concentrations of natural radionuclides: 228U-series, 232Th-series and 40k in raw materials of ceramic (zirconium silicate and glaze sample), ceramic tiles, tile, lime stone, granite, marble, gypsum and cement, in order to determine the dose received and health risk of the workers in building materials industries, the specific activities of those radionuclides, in all samples collected were measured. High resolution γ-ray spectroscopy measurements were done using hyper pure germanium (Hp Ge) detector. The measured activity concentrations for these radionuclides were compared with the data of other countries. As a measure of radiation hazard to the workers, the radium equivalent activities, the external hazard index (Hex), internal hazard index (Hin) representative level index (Iγ) and total annual effective dose associated with the radionuclides were estimated. The calculated total annual effective dose and the activity concentration index of all types of building materials were <1 mSv y-I and 1 mSv y-I, respectively