Development of a portable graphite calorimeter for photons and electrons

The aim of this project is to develop a calorimeter for use in both electron and photon beams. The calorimeter should be more robust than the present NPL primary standard X-ray calorimeter and is designed to be sufficiently portable to enable measurements at clinical accelerators away from NPL. Although intended for therapy-level dosimetry, the new calorimeter can also be used for high-dose measurements at industrial facilities. The system consists of a front end (the calorimeter itself), means for thermal isolation and temperature control, and a measurement system based on thermistors in a DC Wheatstone bridge. The early part of the project focused on the development of a temperature control system sensitive enough to allow measurements of temperature rises of the order of 1 mK. The control system responds to the calorimeter, phantom and air temperatures and maintains the temperature of the calorimeter to within ± 0.2 mK over several hours. Initial operation at NPL in 6, 10 and 16 MV X-ray beams show that the system is capable of measurements of 1 Gy at 2 Gy/min with a random uncertainty of ± 0.5% (1 standard deviation). (author)