Calibration, performance and type testing of personal dosemeters used in ionising-radiation applications in Greece

Abstract

Active Personal Dosemeters (APDs) are widely used in real-time personal dosimetry. Their performance, operational characteristics and limitations, as well as their calibration should be routinely checked to assure satisfactory operation and safe use. This study summarises the results of such type tests and calibrations performed in almost 4750 dosemeters at Ionising Radiation Calibration Laboratory (HIRCL) of Greek Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC). About 13.8% of the pencil type and 4.3% of the electronic dosemeters were found to be out of limits of acceptable performance. For the pencil type dosemeters, the mean calibration factor (CF+/-SD) for high- and low-dose categories was found to be 1.014+/-0.102 (range 0.793-1.458) and 0.995+/-0.059 (range 0.794-1.311), respectively. Of these >85% of them had reproducibility better than 90%, while <1% showed remarkable non-linearity and approximately 10% of them failed to retain the dose reading within the limits after 24 h. For the electronic dosemeters, the mean CF was 1.034+/-0.046 (range 0.967-1.238). The majority of them showed good reproducibility and linearity results while, after irradiation, the dose readings were not shifted through time. The energy response varies with the dosemeter type, reaching in one dosemeter type down to 50%. Both electronic and pencil did not showed electronic equilibrium problems.

Comparison of calibration factors for field-class dosimeters

“…Con sid er ing elec tronic per sonal do sim e ters (EPD), sev eral stud ies have shown that most of them ful fill the re quire ments of the IEC 61526:2010 standard [5] within a wide range of pho ton en er gies [14][15][16][17][18]. This cor re sponds with the lim its of vari a tion of the do sim e ter re sponse with a pho ton en ergy between +67 % and -29 %, com pared to the ref er ence radi a tion qual ity -usu ally 137 Cs (ra di a tion qual ity code S-Cs [19]).…”