A simple method to monitor the dose rate of secondary cosmic radiation at altitude

Abstract

Monitoring the ambient dose equivalent rate at aviation altitudes is an ambitious task, which requires sophisticated dosemeter systems and the possibility to carry out such measurements on board aircraft. A rather simple approach has been investigated in this study: soundings with weather balloons up to an altitude of 30 km. This paper summarises the measurements carried out between 2011 and 2016. The results indicate that annual measurements of the ambient dose equivalent rate at altitudes of around 20 km are a reliable tool to monitor the variation of the dose rate in the atmosphere owing to the solar activity.

AIRDOS — open-source PIN diode airborne dosimeter

“…Since the effective dose is not a measurable quantity, an ambient dose equivalent H* (10) is introduced [35]. For calculation of an ambient dose equivalent rate from a dose rate in silicon provided by AIRDOS, we used an approach described in [36]. This method was established for Liulin, nevertheless, AIRDOS utilises the exact same PIN diode as Liulin thus dose in silicon has to be the same.…”

“…Comparison of doses calculated by CARI 7 program and doses measured with three manufactured dosimeters and TEPC. Please note that error of the used computation method [36] of the ambient dose equivalent is ±2.6% and CARI 7 model deviation from ICRU reference data is from −4% to +14% [3]. The overall uncertainty of values provided by HAWK is 10% [40].…”

“…Where 𝑘 Liulin/Airdos = 1.05, it represents different channel width of Liulin and AIRDOS and this systematic difference is estimated as 5% (lowest estimation of this systematic difference is 4.8% by [32]), 𝑘 Sv/Gy = 2.45, it is a mean value of a calibration factor for Liulin by the work [36] for the geomagnetic cutoff rigidities from 3.5 to 8.6 GV. Calculated values for the three AIRDOS devices are displayed in the graphs in figure 10 for the specific flight.…”