Hanford Radiological Protection Support Services Annual Report for 1998

Abstract

The Radiation Standards and Calibration Project (RS&CP) maintains the radiological standards necessary to support the characterization and calibration needs of instrument and external dosimetry projects. This includes maintaining any necessary special instrument and dosimeter responsecharacterizing equipment and supplemental radiation reference fields. This project provides the means to characterize response to radiation fields encountered at Hanford and ensures that the calibration fields comply with and are traceable to recommended standards and guides (notably those of NIST). During CY98, the consistency of routinely used instrument standards was verified to ensure their accuracy for field measurements. RS&CP staff initiated the development of five International Standards Organization filtered X-ray techniques in anticipation of future dosimetry proficiency testing needs within both the iv National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program W A P ) and DOELAP. Three NIST interactions could not be fulfilled by NIST during the year due to facility maintenance and upgrades. These included 1) a measurement quality assurance evaluation for low-energy photon reference fields, 2) calibration of a 252Cf neutron source, and 3) calibration of a reference ionization chamber to the newly developed I S 0 X-ray techniques. These objectives were postponed until 1999 and did not result in any perceived reduction of quality at PNNL. This was substantiated by a successful onsite assessment by NIST as part of the on-going NVLM accreditation of the calibration laboratory maintained by the Calibration Research and Accreditation group.