BS EN ISO 14146:2024

Radiological protection. Criteria and performance limits for the periodic evaluation of dosimetry services for external radiation. | Status: Current

1 Scope This document specifies the dosimetric and organizational criteria and the test procedures to be used for the periodic verification of the performance of dosimetry services supplying personal and/or area, i.e. workplace and/or environmental, dosemeters used for individual (personal) and/or area, i.e. workplace and/or environmental monitoring.

NOTE The quality of a supplier of a dosimetry service depends on both the characteristics of the approved (type‑tested) dosimetry system1 and the training and experience of the staff, together with the calibration procedures and quality assurance programmes.

The performance evaluation according to this document can be carried out by a dosimetry service to demonstrate the fulfilment of specified performance requirements. The irradiation qualities used in this document are representative for exposure situations that are expected or mimic workplace fields from the radiological activities being monitored using the dosemeters from the services. This document applies to personal and area dosemeters for the assessment of external photon radiation with a fluence-weighted mean energy between 8 keV and 10 MeV, beta radiation with a fluence-weighted mean energy between 60 keV and 1,2 MeV, and neutron radiation with a fluence-weighted mean energy between 25,3 meV, i.e. thermal neutrons with a Maxwellian energy distribution with kT = 25,3 meV, and 200 MeV. It covers all types of personal and area dosemeters needing laboratory processing (e.g. thermoluminescent, optically stimulated luminescence, radiophotoluminescent, track detectors or photographic-film dosemeters) and involving continuous measurements or measurements repeated regularly at fixed time intervals (e.g. several weeks, one month). Active direct reading as well as semi-passive or hybrid dosemeters, such as direct ion storage (DIS) or silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) dosemeters, for dose measurement, can also be treated according to this document. Then, they are treated as if they were passive, i.e. the dosimetry service reads their indicated values and reports them to the evaluation organization. In this document, the corrected indicated (corrected indication) value is the one given by the dosimetry systems as the final result of the evaluation algorithm (for example display of the software, printout) in units of dose equivalent (Sv). Environmental dosemeters usually indicate the quantity H*(10) but they can, in addition or alternatively, indicate the quantity H'(3), H'(0,07), air kerma, Ka, or absorbed dose, D. All these dosemeters can also be treated according to this document. If Ka or D is indicated (in Gy) the dose values in this document stated in Sv shall then be interpreted as equivalent values in Gy.