Ion chamber-electrometer measurement system for radiation protection tests in X-ray equipment for interventional procedures

A new parallel plate ionization chamber with volume of 500 cc and an electrometer with digital interface for data acquisition, configuring an ion chamber electrometer measurement system, were developed to comply with specific requirements for compulsory radiation protection tests in interventional X-ray equipment. The ion chamber has as main characteristics: low cost, mechanical strength and response variation with beam energy of less than 5% in the 40 kV to 150 kV range. The electrometer has a high gain (5x108 V/A) transimpedance amplifier circuit and a data acquisition and control system developed in LabVIEW ® platform, including an integrated power supply for the ion chamber bias with adjustable DC voltage output from O to 1000 V and an air density correction system. Electric field calculations, laboratory measurements in standard beams and computational simulations of radiation interactions in chamber volume with Monte Carlo Method were employed in the elaborated methodology of the ion chamber development, which was tested and validated. It was also developed a simplified methodology for electrometer calibration that assures metrological trustworthiness of the measurement system. Tests for the system performance evaluation as environmental influence response, energy response, angular dependency, linearity and air kerma and air kerma rate dependency were performed according to international standards and requirements. Additionally, for a detailed evaluation of the developed ion chamber, simulations with various scattered radiation spectra were performed. The system was applied in leakage radiation, residual radiation and scattered radiation tests, being compared with other reference systems and validated for laboratorial test routine. (author)