Rad (unit)

The rad is a unit of absorbed radiation dose, defined as 1 rad = 0.01 Gy = 0.01 J/kg.[1] It was originally defined in CGS units in 1953
as the dose causing 100ergs of energy to be absorbed by onegram of matter. It has been replaced by thegray (Gy) in SI derived units
but is still used in the United States, though "strongly discouraged" in the chapter 5.2 of style guide for U.S. National Institute of
Standards and Technology authors.[2] A related unit, the roentgen, is used to quantify the radiation exposure. The F-factor can be
used to convert between rads and roentgens.

The material absorbing the radiation can be human tissue or silicon microchips or any other medium (for example, air, water, lead
shielding, etc.).

Contents
Health effects
Material effects
Dose examples
History
Radiation-related quantities
See also
References

Health effects
A dose of under 100 rad will typically produce no immediate symptoms other than blood changes. 100 to 200 rad delivered to the
entire body in less than a day may causeacute radiation syndrome, (ARS) but is usually not fatal. Doses of 200 to 1,000 rad delivered
in a few hours will cause serious illness with poor outlook at the upper end of the range. Whole body doses of more than 1,000 rad
are almost invariably fatal.[3] Therapeutic doses of radiation therapy are often given and well tolerated even at higher doses to treat
discrete and well defined anatomical structures. The same dose given over a longer period of time is less likely to cause ARS. Dose
[4]
thresholds are about 50% higher for dose rates of 20 rad/h, and even higher for lower dose rates.

Radiation increases the risk of cancer and other stochastic effects at any dose. The International Commission on Radiological
Protection maintains a model of these risks as a function of absorbed dose and other factors. That model calculates an effective
radiation dose, measured units of rem, which is more representative of the stochastic risk than the absorbed dose in rad. In most
power plant scenarios, where the radiation environment is dominated by gamma or x rays applied uniformly to the whole body, 1 rad
of absorbed dose gives 1 rem of effective dose.[5] In other situations, the effective dose in rem might be thirty times higher or
thousands of time lower than the absorbed dose in rad.

Material effects
Silicon-based microelectronics break down under exposure to radiation. Radiation-hardened components designed for military or
[6]
nuclear applications can survive up to 100 Mrad (1 MGy).

Metals creep, harden, and become brittle under the ef

fect of radiation.

Foods and medical equipment can be sterilized with radiation.

Dose examples
25 rad: lowest dose to cause clinically observable blood changes
200 rad: local dose for onset of erythema in humans
400 rad: whole body LD50 for acute radiation syndrome in humans
1 krad: whole body LD100 for acute radiation syndrome in humans[7]
1 krad: typical radiation tolerance of ordinary microchips
4 to 8 krad: typical radiotherapy dose, locally applied
10 krad: fatal whole-body dose in 1964 Wood River Junction criticality accident[8]
1 Mrad: typical tolerance of radiation-hardened microchips

History
In the 1930s the roentgen was the most commonly used unit of radiation exposure. This unit is obsolete and no longer clearly defined.
One roentgen deposits 0.877 rad in dry air, 0.96 rad in soft tissue,[9] or anywhere from 1 to more than 4 rad in bone depending on the
beam energy.[10] These conversions to absorbed energy all depend on the ionizing energy of a standard medium, which is ambiguous
in the latest NIST definition. Even where the standard medium is fully defined, the ionizing ener
gy is often not precisely known.

In 1940, British physicist Louis Harold Gray, who had been studying the effect of neutron damage on human tissue, together with
William Valentine Mayneord and John Read published a paper in which a unit of measure, dubbed the "gram roentgen" (symbol: gr)
defined as "that amount of neutron radiation which produces an increment in ener
gy in unit volume of tissue equal to the increment of
energy produced in unit volume of water by one roentgen of radiation"[11] was proposed. This unit was found to be equivalent to
88 ergs in air. It marked a shift towards measurements based on ener
gy rather than charge.

The Röntgen equivalent physical (rep), introduced by Herbert Parker in 1945,[12] was the absorbed energetic dose to tissue before
factoring in relative biological effectiveness. The rep has variously been defined as 83 or 93 ergs per gram of tissue (8.3/9.3mGy)[13]
or per cc of tissue.[14]

In 1953 the ICRU recommended the rad, equal to 100 erg/g as a new unit of absorbed radiation,[15] but then promoted a switch to the
gray in the 1970s.

The International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM) has not accepted the use of the rad. From 1977 to 1998, the US
NIST's translations of the SI brochure stated that the CIPM had temporarily accepted the use of the rad (and other radiology units)
with SI units since 1969.[16] However, the only related CIPM decisions shown in the appendix are with regards to the curie in 1964
and the radian (symbol: rad) in 1960. The NIST brochures redefined the rad as 0.01 Gy. The CIPM's current SI brochure excludes the
rad from the tables of non-SI units accepted for use with the SI.[17] The US NIST clarified in 1998 that it was providing its own
interpretations of the SI system, whereby it accepted the rad for use in the US with the SI, while recognizing that the CIPM did
not.[18] NIST recommends defining the rad in relation to SI units in every document where this unit is used.[19] Nevertheless, use of
the rad remains widespread in the US, where it is still an industry standard.[20] Although the United States Nuclear Regulatory
Commission still permits the use of the units curie, rad, and rem alongside SI units,[21] the European Union required that its use for
"public health ... purposes"be phased out by 31 December 1985.[22]

Radiation-related quantities
The following table shows radiation quantities in SI and non-SI units:
 Radiation related quantities
Quantity Unit Symbol Derivation Year SI equivalence

curie Ci 3.7 × 1010 s−1 1953 3.7 × 1010 Bq

Activity (A) becquerel Bq s−1 1974 SI

rutherford Rd 106 s−1 1946 1,000,000 Bq

Exposure (X) röntgen R esu / 0.001293 g of air 1928 2.58 × 10−4 C/kg

Fluence (Φ) (reciprocal area) m−2 1962 SI

erg erg⋅g−1 1950 1.0 × 10−4 Gy

Absorbed dose (D) rad rad 100 erg⋅g−1 1953 0.010 Gy

gray Gy J⋅kg−1 1974 SI

röntgen equivalent man rem 100 erg⋅g−1 1971 0.010 Sv

Dose equivalent (H)
sievert Sv J⋅kg−1 × WR 1977 SI

See also
Becquerel
Curie (unit)
Radiation
Gray (unit)
Roentgen (unit)
Roentgen equivalent man(rem)
Sievert
Order of magnitude (unit)

References
1. International Bureau of Weights and Measures (2008). United States National Institute of Standards and echnology,
T
ed. The International System of Units (SI)(http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/sp330.pdf)(PDF). NIST Special
Publication 330. Dept. of Commerce, National Institute of Standards andechnology.
T Retrieved 29 May 2012.
2. "NIST Guide to SI Units – ch.5.2 Units temporarily accepted for use with the SI"
(http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/
sec05.html#5.2). National Institute of Standards and T
echnology.
3. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Revised ed., US DOD 1962, pp. 592–593
4. "The 2007 Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection"
(http://www.icrp.org/public
ation.asp?id=ICRP%20Publication%20103). Annals of the ICRP. ICRP publication 103.37 (2-4). 2007. ISBN 978-0-
7020-3048-2. Retrieved 17 May 2012.
5. "Converting rad to rem, Health Physics Society"(https://web.archive.org/web/20130626085830/http://www .hps.org/p
ublicinformation/ate/q3142.html). Archived from the original (http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q3142.html) on
June 26, 2013.
6. Introduction to Radiation-Resistant Semiconductor Devices and Circuits
(http://www-physics.lbl.gov/~spieler/radiatio
n_effects/rad_tutor.pdf)
7. Anno, GH; Young, RW; Bloom, RM; Mercier, JR (2003). "Dose response relationships for acute ionizing-radiation
lethality". Health Physics. 84 (5): 565–575. doi:10.1097/00004032-200305000-00001(https://doi.org/10.1097%2F00
004032-200305000-00001).
8. Goans, R E; Wald, N (1 January 2005). "Radiation accidents with multi-organ failure in the United States".British
Journal of Radiology: 41–46. doi:10.1259/bjr/27824773 (https://doi.org/10.1259%2Fbjr%2F27824773) .
9. "APPENDIX E: Roentgens, RADs, REMs, and other Units"(http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/radsafeguide/rsg_app
_e.htm). Princeton University Radiation Safety Guide. Princeton University. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
10. Sprawls, Perry. "Radiation Quantities and Units"(http://www.sprawls.org/ppmi2/RADQU/3RADQU08.gif). The
Physical Principles of Medical Imaging, 2nd Ed. Retrieved 10 May 2012.
11. Gupta, S. V. (2009-11-19). "Louis Harold Gray". Units of Measurement: Past, Present and Future : International
System of Units (https://books.google.com/books?id=pHiKycrLmEQC&pg=P A144). Springer. p. 144. ISBN 978-3-
642-00737-8. Retrieved 2012-05-14.
12. Cantrill, S.T; H.M. Parker (1945-01-05)."The Tolerance Dose" (http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataP
refix=html&identifier=ADA322447). Argonne National Laboratory: US Atomic Energy Commission . Retrieved 14 May
2012.
13. Dunning, John R.; et al. (1957).A Glossary of Terms in Nuclear Science andTechnology (https://books.google.ca/bo
oks?id=-zgrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=83+erg+roentgen&source=bl&ots=NH0gk0eNeD&sig=EfFqXfhl
SczKw3GKwCRMn4ncayY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YZCxT5XlEYzsggfbvIW9CQ&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=8
3%20erg%20roentgen&f=false). American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
14. Bertram, V. A. Low-Beer (1950). The clinical use of radioactive isotopes(https://books.google.com/books?id=wnTvxg
6ZAToC). Thomas. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
15. Guill, JH; Moteff, John (June 1960). "Dosimetry in Europe and the USSR"(https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=czT i
4G6-Hq8C&pg=PA63&lpg=PA63&dq=roentgen+redefinition&source=bl&ots=Ha5UORUM vK&sig=2InfcxgNMCdnKBs
Jw9JMWDmrn0Y&hl=de&sa=X&ei=X3CyT7-ENabP4QT A0dyLCQ&ved=0CGMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=roentge
n%20redefinition&f=false). Third Pacific Area Meeting Papers - Materials in Nuclear Applications - American Society
Technical Publication No 276. Symposium on Radiation Effects and Dosimetry - Third Pacific Area Meeting
American Society for Testing Materials, October 1959, San Francisco, 12–16 October 1959. Baltimore: ASTM
International. p. 64. LCCN 60-14734 (https://lccn.loc.gov/60-14734). Retrieved 15 May 2012.
16. International Bureau of Weights and Measures (1977). United States National Bureau of Standards, ed.The
international system of units (SI)(https://books.google.com/books?id=YvZNdSdeCnEC&pg=PA12). NBS Special
Publication 330. Dept. of Commerce, National Bureau of Standards . Retrieved 18 May 2012.
17. International Bureau of Weights and Measures (2006), The International System of Units (SI)(http://www.bipm.org/ut
ils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf)(PDF) (8th ed.), ISBN 92-822-2213-6, archived (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0170814094625/http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf)(PDF) from the original on 2017-08-14
18. Lyons, John W. (1990-12-20). "Metric System of Measurement: Interpretation of the International System of Units for
the United States". Federal Register. US Office of the Federal Register. 55 (245): 52242–52245.
19. Hebner, Robert E. (1998-07-28)."Metric System of Measurement: Interpretation of the International System of Units
for the United States" (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-1998-07-28/pdf/98-16965.pdf) (PDF). Federal Register. US
Office of the Federal Register. 63 (144): 40339. Retrieved 9 May 2012.
20. Handbook of Radiation Effects, 2nd edition, 2002, Andrew Holmes-Siedle and Len Adams
21. 10 CFR 20.1004 (https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part020/part020-1004.html). US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. 2009.
22. The Council of the European Communities (1979-12-21)."Council Directive 80/181/EEC of 20 December 1979 on
the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to Unit of measurement and on the repeal of Directive
71/354/EEC" (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31980L0181:EN:NOT). Retrieved
19 May 2012.

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