engleski

ALARA OD Active Electronic Personal Dosemeter – implementing a new concept in radiation protection

Modern physics has introduced a variety of detectors of ionizing radiation for radiation protection purpose. Only a few of them are integrated in electronic dosemeters meeting basic personal dosimetry requirements. As passive dosemeters can give us clear data only about the occupational dose over a control period, usually monthly, corresponding real data about the duration of actual occupational exposure are not available. We have developed and used Active Electronic Personal Dosemeter (AEPD), type “ ALARA OD” , which provides additional dosimetry data, including the frequency and duration of low level x-ray exposure burden. Although the AEPD device is based on a traditional Geiger Mueller tube detector modern electronics enables the use of two main modes of operation simultaneous: in one mode it can detect and integrate the local background ionizing radiation and store into it’ s memory as long as battery lives (far more than one year), while in the second mode AEPD can “ recognize” the external radiation field produced by external g radiation source in occupational environment. Second mode is activated when new external radiation field exceeds twice a local background. Properly calibrated AEPD is providing new, very important occupational exposure data, duration and frequency of any external radiation field in the given working environment. If used, for instance in diagnostic or modern interventional radiology [2] where occupational exposures are, both frequency and time duration, irregular, it provides crucial new data about the low level exposure burden off medical professional staff. Switching off the device is not possible because it is one of several basic requirements for electronic device to act as personal dosemeter. Maintenance, readout and dosimetric data evaluation are performed only by medical physicist.

AEPD; personal dosimetry; occupational exposure; radiation protection

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