Ambient and Personal Effective Dose Assessment at the International Arrival Hall of Taichung Airport in Taiwan.

Ambient monitor and phantom studies were carried out in the international arrival hall of Taichung Airport, Taiwan. A total of 172 thermoluminescent dosimeters (TLDs) were used for ambient monitoring. The sites of the export conveyor, the outward face of the x-ray scanning chamber, and the x-ray image monitor were assessed as low-radiation areas because the possible annual effective doses were 0.12, 0.39, and 0.16 mSv, all less than 1 mSv per year. In addition, a phantom filled with 126 TLDs was used to simulate a 10-year-old child being exposed by the x-ray baggage scanner. The effective dose was evaluated as 3.39 ± 0.33 µSv/scan, using the tissue weighting factor of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) 103 report. This figure is a useful reference should a person be accidentally scanned by the x-ray baggage scanner.

Comparison on characteristics of radiophotoluminescent glass dosemeters and thermoluminescent dosemeters.

The radiophotoluminescent glass dosemeter (RPLGD) system is applicable for measurement of radiation dose of X rays and gamma rays by using radiophotoluminescent glass (silver-activated phosphate glass). When the radiophotoluminescent glass is exposed to ionizing radiation, stable luminescent centres are created. During pulsed ultraviolet laser excitation (337.1 nm) in the reader, the centres emit a radiation induced orange fluorescent light (600-700 nm). This phenomenon is called radiophotoluminescence. This study compared the RPLGD system with lithium fluoride (LiF) thermoluminescence dosimetry system and the results of the study revealed that the RPLGD had not only good basic characteristics for reproducibility of readout value, dose linearity, energy dependence and fading, but also infinite repeatable measurements and could be one of the most important radiation dose measurement instruments.