Material

“Material” is the term used in Ecolego to identify the modelled items, for example contaminants like radionuclides or chemicals. In other software and literature, material is sometimes referred to as “species”.

Radionuclides

A radionuclide is a special type of material which also has radioactive properties such as half life, element, atomic number etc. When you add radionuclides to your model, Ecolego will automatically handle nuclide decay and in-growth.

Adding a new material

Materials can be created from the Projects window and from the Materials window.

From the Projects window

  • Expand the Project to which you wish to add the material by clicking the + symbol next to it. Right-click on ‘Materials’, and select the type of material that you want from the pop-up menu.

From the Materials window

  • Place the mouse anywhere over the area of this window and right-click. Select the sub-menu “Create” and choose the type of Material you want, or

  • Click on the New button on title bar of this window to create a generic material, or the Nuclide button to add a radionuclide (see below). When you add a radionuclide, Ecolego will import it’s properties from the built-in radionuclide database. From the window that appears, first select an atomic element from the “Element” drop down list and then select an isotope from the second window.

Note If you also want to import a full decay chain you must do so from the Nuclide database window.

Editing materials

The material editor is shown by right-clicking the material in a window and selecting Edit. In the Materials window, you can also show the editor by selecting the material and clicking the Edit button, or by double-clicking the right-most “validation” column of the material in the table.

The material editor has two tabs:

Properties

This page lets you edit basic properties such as name and unit. See editing properties for more information.

Half-life

This page is only available when editing radionuclides.

Mass number - The mass number of the radionuclide

Atomic number - The atomic number of the radionuclide

Halflife - The atomic halflife of the radionuclide. The Time unit drop down list can be used to select a unit for the halflife.

Decay constant - Lets you, as an alternative to enter the atomic halflife, enter the radionuclide decay constant.

See also