A new approach for discriminative measurements of different components of external ionizing radiation

For discriminative measurements of the different components of external ionizing radiation by passive dosimeters, a new monitoring post consisting of a 3-layer lead chamber and 4 sets of passive dosimeters was designed in this study. Based on the theoretical studies, the thicknesses of the lead layers were determined and the algorithm for quantifying the different components of external ionizing radiation was derived. To testify the design, in-situ measurements were carried out at two different sites throughout a year. The results indicated that the monitoring post could accurately measure the hard and soft components of secondary cosmic rays and the terrestrial gamma radiation. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that by adding a passive radon monitor in the monitoring site, the artificial gamma radiation around the monitoring site could also be quantified by the monitoring post. - Highlights: • A new approach for discriminative measurements of different components of external ionizing radiation was proposed. • Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to determine the optimal configuration of the monitoring post. • Good performance of the monitoring post in measuring external ionizing radiations was validated by in-situ measurements. • Low-level artificial radiation is capable to be detected with the monitoring post by adding a radon monitor.