Active personal dosemeters in interventional radiology: tests in laboratory conditions and in hospitals.

The work package 3 of the ORAMED project, Collaborative Project (2008-11) supported by the European Commission within its seventh Framework Programme, is focused on the optimisation of the use of active personal dosemeters (APDs) in interventional radiology and cardiology (IR/IC). Indeed, a lack of appropriate APD devices is identified for these specific fields. Few devices can detect low-energy X rays (20-100 keV), and none of them are specifically designed for working in pulsed radiation fields. The work presented in this paper consists in studying the behaviour of some selected APDs deemed suitable for application in IR/IC. For this purpose, measurements under laboratory conditions, both with continuous and pulsed X-ray beams, and tests in real conditions on site in different European hospitals were performed. This study highlights the limitations of APDs for this application and the need of improving the APD technology so as to fulfil all needs in the IR/IC field.

Consideration on calibration and correction factors of an Hp10 chamber for different radiation qualities and angles of incidence.

This paper presents the characterisation performed at IRSN (France) of an H(p)(10) chamber in terms of calibration coefficient and correction factors for the radiation qualities of ISO narrow spectrum series. The chamber response, expressed in H(p)(10) using conversion coefficients h(p)(K)(10; N, alpha) listed in ISO 4037-3 in the energy range from 30 to 1250 keV and for angles of incidence between 0 and 70 degrees, was found to be within approximately 10%. However, for photon energies <30 keV, an overresponse of the chamber that could reach 100% was observed. Nevertheless, this overresponse was reduced to 25% using the conversion coefficients estimated at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). This implies that the X-ray spectra produced by the IRSN X-ray units are very similar to those produced by PTB, both containing a little bit more high-energy photons than the spectra used in ISO 4037-3. The dose rate dependence of the chamber tested by gamma radiation from (60)Co sources was found to be within 2% in the range of 0.3 mSv h(-1) to 1 Sv h(-1). The H(p)(10) chamber can measure directly the conventional true value of H(p)(10) after calibration by a reference laboratory, and can be used for transferring H(p)(10) reference quantities from a reference laboratory.

Electronic neutron personal dosemeters: their performance in mixed radiation fields in nuclear power plants.

This work describes spectral distributions of neutrons obtained as function of energy and direction at four workplace fields at the Krümmel reactor in Germany. Values of personal dose equivalent H(p)(10) and effective dose E are determined for different directions of a person's orientation in these fields and readings of personal neutron dosemeters--especially electronic dosemeters--are discussed with respect to H(p)(10) and E.

Study of the photon radiation performance of electronic personal dosemeters.

Following the specifications and test methods given by international standards IEC-61526 and ISO 4037, the dosimetry department of the IPSN studied the photon radiation performance of seven recent electronic personal dosemeters: The personal dosimetric performance of each piece of equipment was tested with X and gamma radiation between 12 keV and 1.25 MeV.