This Technical Specification applies to all types of counting dosemeters, irrespective of the
measuring quantity and the type of radiation intended to be measured. It ensures that a single
radiation pulse can be correctly measured even if the dosemeter is in the internal state
relevant for measuring background or environmental radiation. The characteristics of the
dosemeter for repeated pulses is expected to be better than for one single radiation pulse
with the same parameters but worse than for continuous radiation, i.e., in between of the
characteristics for these two extreme conditions. This Technical Specification does not specify
the characteristics of the dosemeter for repeated pulses. The Technical Specification does not
apply for those types of counting dosemeters that either
– do not have an indication or software read-out of the dose rate and the number of pulses
counted,
– convert the non-pulsed detector signal to counts by a converter, or
– use nuclear reactions to generate long and nearly continuous secondary radiation fields
which then are measured by the dosemeter using counting techniques instead of
measuring the direct radiation pulse.
The pulsed radiation source is characterized by the parameters
– radiation pulse duration, tpulse,
– pulse peak dose rate, H pulse,peak ,
– dose per radiation pulse, Hpulse.
This Technical Specification considers the pulsation of the radiation field as an additional
influence quantity like particle energy and direction of radiation incidence. Therefore, the tests
described are additional to all the tests in the respective standards.
This technical specification describes methods to determine the characteristic parameters of
the counting dosemeter. A prerequisite of the method is that the model function of the dosemeter
can sufficiently be approximated by
Gdose = Gcount × ncount × kdead (1)
where Gdose is the dose indication of the dosemeter,
Gcount is the dose indication per counting event,
ncount is the number of counting events counted by the dosemeter, and
kdead is the correction for dead time losses.
This simplified model function should not fully describe the dosemeter but it should be valid
only – maybe with effective values – for the tests in the case of a single pulse occurring when
the dosemeter is in the internal state relevant for measuring background or environmental
radiation, i.e., the dosemeter has not performed any specific parameter adjustment for high
dose rate. In this sense this simplified model function uses effective parameters specific for
pulsed radiation.
This technical specification is applicable to all types of radiation for which a suitable pulsed
reference field is available and all other requirements are fulfilled.