الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The use of natural resources in industry caused an increase in environmental pollution. The environment was greatly affected by many pollutants from the use of natural materials (raw materials) in many industries. These materials can contain naturally radioactive isotopes as well as heavy metals.
So this study focused on measuring the concentrations of natural activity of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in different types of building materials to assess their radiation risks. In addition to the elemental analysis of some building materials to assess the health risks resulting from exposure to heavy metals present in these materials, whether for workers or users.
This thesis consists of four chapters:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter includes the following: Some properties of the natural radioactive isotopes and their sources, as well as heavy metals. It also deal with the sources of heavy metals, their properties, their toxicity as well as an explanation of the neutron activation (NAA) technique that included sources of neutrons, types of NAA, and sensitivity of NAA and advantages of NAA.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
This chapter presents many studies that carried out for determining the activity concentration of natural radionuclides in some building materials and assessment their radiological hazard parameters. It also presents many studies about elemental analysis of some building materials by neutron activation analysis.
Chapter 3: Experimental Work
This chapter presents the following items:
• Sample Preparation
Some of building’s raw materials include clay, fly ash, feldspar, bauxite, ceramic colors, zirconium, marble, granite and cement were collected for this study from various Egyptian markets and factories. The steps of samples preparation for measurement (the activity concentration of natural radionuclides and elemental analysis by neutron activation technique) are presented in this part.
• Gamma-ray Spectrometer
This part also presents the technique that used for activity measurements of natural radionuclides, gamma spectrometer (Hyper pure germanium detector; HPGe), counting system components and characteristics of the system.
• Neutron activation analysis
This part presents the facility that used for neutron irradiation for neutron activation analysis (The Egyptian second research reactor; ETRR-2), first irradiation period 30 sec, second irradiation period 1h, gamma spectroscopy, energy and efficiency calibration of the counting system, NAA calculations to determine the concentration of elements then the health risk assessment (non-cancer effect evaluation, cancer effect evaluation) due to exposure to heavy metals in the investigated samples.
Chapter 4: Results and Discussion
This chapter presents the results of all experimental techniques that used in this study:
• Confirmation of activity concentrations and count rates for Ra-226 after separation of U-235 line for the investigated samples.
• Activity concentration of U-238, Th-232 and K-40 in all investigated samples that measured by hyper pure germanium (HPGe) detector.
• A comparison of mean activity concentrations of natural radionuclides in this study and other studies from different countries for different materials.
• Different radiological hazard parameters (radium equivalent activity, absorbed gamma dose rate, annual effective dose rate, excess lifetime cancer risk, external and internal hazard indices).
• Annual equivalent and effective doses due to occupational exposure of workers to natural radionuclides in all investigated samples.
• The elemental analysis of all samples that used for this study by neutron activation technique.
• The health risk assessment (non-cancer and cancer effect evaluation) due to exposure to heavy metals in the investigated samples.