Comparison measurements of the official individual dosimetry systems in the Federal Republic of Germany

At present, about 220,000 radiation workers are subject to individual monitoring of external radiation in the Federal Republic of Germany in accordance with the X-Ray Ordinance and the Radiation Protection Ordinance and the Radiation Protection Ordinance. Each radiation worker must wear at least one individual dosemeter provided by one of the five officially authorized dosemeter services. Requirements for these dosemeter services with respect to technical equipment and personnel are published in the form of a national directive. The five dosemeter services must participate in the comparison measurements for photon radiation with the official dosemeters issued by them. The comparison measurements are organized at least once a year by the Physicalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in agreement with the Federal Minister of Economics. Film dosemeters evaluated with a filter analysis procedure are most frequently used (96.% of all evaluations in 1984) to monitor the whole body exposure to photon radiation. Glass dosemeters play a minor role (0.5%). They are issued by only two officially authorized dosemeter services and are approved for measurements of photons with energies above 45 keV. According to the national directive, thermoluminescence dosemeters may be used only for partial body dosimetry of photon and beta radiation (2.8%). Nuclear track emulsion films are distributed to measure neutrons of energies above 0.5 MeV. A thermoluminescence albedo dosemeter for the measurement of less energetic neutrons is being introduced. The dosimetry systems involved in the comparison measurements and the operational radiation protection monitoring system of the Federal Republic of Germany are described elsewhere. The objective of this work is to describe the performance of the comparison measurements and to give some results obtained from 1979 to 1984