Abstract:
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) sets regulations for specific depths in the human skin for exposure to highly localized radioactive particles known as hot particles. This research determines the dose rate to a 10 cm² area with a density thickness of 1 mg/cm² at depths representing shallow dose, lens of the eye, deep dose, and other depths in the skin of biological interest, using experimental data obtained with very thin thermoluminescent dosimetry (TLDs). The TLDs are the thinnest LiF TLD-100s that are currently manufactured (0.3175 cm x 0.3175 cm x 0.0152 cm). The TLDs were irradiated on contact with radioactive sources to obtain data to construct calibration curves for each of the sources. The calibration curves were used to determine dose when layers of tissue-equivalent plastic were placed between the TLD and the source. Monte Carlo N Particle version 5 and VARSKIN version 3 computational code simulations were compared against the experimental data along with the prototypic skin contamination dosimeter, which was recently designed at Oregon State University.
