Compliance of environmental thermoluminescent dosimetry with recommendations, and data interpretation

There are two aims in environmental monitoring, namely to set up a reliable measuring system and to interpret the data in terms of biologically and legally relevant quantities. For the former aim, metrological specifications achieved under calibration and routine conditions with a thermoluminescent dosimetry system at the Gesellschaft fuer Strahlen- und Umweltforschung mbH, Neuherberg, are given and compared with other systems available. Attention is focussed on compliance of the specifications with requirements defined by a few recommendations particularly those having regard to the lower limit of detection, accuracy, energy range of interest and parameters which influence the reading. In addition, Monte-Carlo calculations have been performed with an MIRD-5 phantom to interpret the environmental dosimetry data in terms of dose equivalent to various tissues of the human body. Revised results are presented on body doses in relationship to different irradiation quantities, i.e. absorbed dose or dose-equivalent index in free air. (author)