Monte Carlo technique applications in the field of radiation dosimetry at the ENEA Radiation Protection Institute: A review

At the ENEA (Ente Nazionale per le Nuove Technologie l'Energia e l'Ambiente) Institute of Bologna (Italy) many years of various activities have been carried out in the field of experimental dosimetry and radiation protection. As far as the external radiation monitoring is concerned, these activities dealt with the design, development and type test of photon personal dosemeters as well as routine reading and control of dosemeters, calibration activities etc. As far as the internal dosimetry activities are concerned a whole body counter (WBC) has been built and used many years both for research activities and for routine assessment of internal doses. The WBC has been extensively used in the recent years, especially after the Chernobyl accident, to assess doses from intake of radioactive nuclides for Italian workers employed in Russia as well as normal population mainly living in the north-eastern Italian areas. In recent years, the necessity of improving the general dose assessment capabilities and to provide accurate field parameters and operational quantities, according to the international recommendations, outlined the importance of coupling experimental work with Monte Carlo radiation transport modelling. The present paper summarizes some studies carried out with Monte Carlo in the framework of the ENEA contribution to the activities of the EURADOS Working Group 4; they are concerned with computations of field parameters and operational quantities for the ICRU sphere with reference photon beams and modelling and calculations for photon internal and external dose assessment with the ADAM anthropomorphic phantom