Extremity model for neutron dose calculations

Abstract

In personnel dosimetry for external radiation exposures, health physicists tend to focus on measurement of whole body dose, where 'whole body' is generally regarded as the torso on which the dosimeter is placed.' Although a variety of scenarios exist in which workers must handle radioactive materials, whole body dose estimates may not be appropriate when assessing dose, particularly to the extremities. For example, consider sources used for instrument calibration. If such sources are in a contact geometry (e.g. held by fingers), an extremity dose estimate may be more relevant than a whole body dose. However, because questions arise regarding how that dose should be calculated, a detailed extremity model was constructed with the MCNP-4Ca Monte Carlo code. Although initially intended for use with gamma sources, recent work by Shores2 provided the impetus to test the model with neutrons