A Course in Luminescence Measurements and Analyses for Radiation Dosimetry. Stephen W. S. McKeever
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СКАЧАТЬ with the spacecraft structures, the astronauts’ space suits, and the astronauts’ bodies, secondary charged particles and neutrons are also produced. Personal and environmental dosimeters for use in space therefore need to respond to an extremely wide-ranging set of particles, each with its own efficiency of luminescence production. The dosimeter’s response to each particle type needs to be well-known and calibrated.

      1.3.4 Retrospective Dosimetry

      In one sense, all passive methods of radiation dosimetry are retrospective in that they produce a measurement of dose only after the dose has been delivered. That is, they integrate the total dose received by the dosimeter since the dosimeter’s last reading. (This is opposed to active dosimeters, which record the dose or dose rate in real time during the exposure period.) However, the term “retrospective” is here reserved for assessing the dose received by an individual who may have undergone an acute exposure during a radiation accident and who may not have been wearing a conventional dosimeter at the time. During radiation accidents (i.e., accidental exposure to a radiation source or contamination by radioactive pollutants), members of the public may be exposed, and since it is not likely that they would have been wearing personal dosimeters, such as those shown in Figure 1.5, methods have to be devised in which estimates may be made of the doses to which they may have been exposed. Regrettably, the potential for intentional exposure of members of the public has also be considered, for example, in terrorist events using so-called dirty bombs (radiation dispersal devices), or even improvised nuclear weapons. Some incidents, be they accidental or intentional, involve only a small number of people, as may the case in an over-exposure of a patient undergoing radiotherapy, or perhaps an accident with an industrial source. In other cases, the number of potentially exposed people could be very large, as in a nuclear power plant accident such as those at Chernobyl (Ukraine) and Fukushima (Japan), or in a terrorist attack.

      The materials shown in Figure 1.7 are examples of fortuitous luminescence dosimeters for personal dosimetry. That is, they may be used for dose assessment to the individual wearing or possessing the material. In other applications of retrospective dosimetry, such materials are no longer available. This may be the case in after-the-fact dose assessment following acute or chronic events that took place several months or years previously. In these cases, the dose to the built-environment may be determined by extracting suitable materials from that environment to be used as TL or OSL dosimetry materials. Examples include quartz grains extracted from bricks, or ceramic materials such as tiles or electrical insulators, or even washbasins and toilets. Such measurements, when combined with modeling, enable estimates of the dose to air in the vicinity of the building. Time-and-motion modeling of the movement of people within the environment then allows estimation of the doses to which people may have been exposed. Example applications of this kind have included post-event dose assessment at Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.

      1.3.5 Environmental Dosimetry

      Retrospective dose assessment to the built environment is but one example of environmental dosimetry – the assessment of dose to the environment and/or air. Another example, which is also a type of retrospective dosimetry, is measurement of the natural background dose as part of geological or archaeological dating. Here, an assessment of the dose rate in the soil of a sedimentary layer and the assessment of dose to the artefact found in that layer enables an estimate of the time the artefact has been buried (i.e., the age). Other examples might be the assessment of dose in the air or the soil surrounding a radioactive waste storage site where regular environmental dose assessments of the area surrounding the site are required for monitoring of waste leakage. A final example is the monitoring of doses in air surrounding a nuclear power plant. In each of these applications, both TL and OSL have found application and their use continues in this way.

      Exercise 1.2

      Choose an application from one of the many noted in Section 1.3 and write a paper, based on library research, to illustrate the development and usage of TL, OSL, or RPL in that application.

      1.4 Bibliography of Luminescence Dosimetry Applications

      A useful bibliography describing these applications, and more, is listed below (alphabetical order, by first author).

       Aitken, M.J. (1985). Thermoluminescence Dating. Academic Press, London.

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