Determination of beam properties of an industrial Electron Beam Accelerator

An industrial electron beam accelerator of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) located at Vashi, Mumbai (India) has been upgraded from 2 MeV to 5 MeV to process thick polymers and packaged products. Evaluation of electron beam profile of at the upgraded industrial electron beam accelerator has been carried out for studying characteristics of the beam required for the irradiation of various industrial products. Calibrated cellulose triacetate (CTA) film strip dosimeters were used for the measurement of dose profile along and perpendicular to the scanning direction at different distances in air under the beam extraction window in conveyor and static mode of operation. Two dimensional dose mapping under the beam has been measured by using large number of CTA strip dosimeters. The obtained result shows that the electron beam emerging out from scanning horn has a good uniformity along scanning direction and beam profile over scan the product under irradiation. Dosimetry was carried out for two-sided irradiation in unit density material with 4.5 MeV electron beam by varying thickness. It was found that 30 mm thickness of unit density product (plastic sheet) provides uniform dose with over dose ratio of 1.3 for double sided irradiation. (author)