The enhancement of the whole body countersAim of the studyThe motivation for this enterprise is to renew the whole body counters of STUK (a mobile unit and an indoor laboratory) to enhance the internal dose assessment. ImplementationMobile unit on a truck: To begin with, a prototype of the new measurement setup will be built parallel to the present one. The improvements will enhance the safety as the vast cold (liquid nitrogen) masses above the monitored person will be removed. Also the ergonomics will be better and the detection efficiency for lung contamination will increase. Based on the results, a completely new or modified unit will be built. The data acquisition software will be harmonized with the Radionuclide Analytics Laboratory. The testing and calibration phase will exploit both traditional and mathematical (voxel) phantoms. Laboratory: The ancient rails and detector support ring will be removed from the iron room to give way to a new lung counter. The present whole body counter will be modified in order to optimise the use of semiconductor detectors and possibly new Russian-made NaI crystals. The data acquisition software will be harmonized with the Radionuclide Analytics Laboratory and with the mobile unit. The testing and calibration phase will exploit both traditional and mathematical (voxel) phantoms. In addition, the lung phantoms that have been ordered from Russia will be used for the lung counter calibration. Voxel models will be created from these new phantoms once they arrive. Dissemination and exploitation of the resultsNew measurement units will be used in research, service, and preparedness tasks. Scientific reports will be published both in national and international forums. CollaboratorsMeasurement instrument dealers and commercial metal workshops Timetable2009–2011 Responsible scientistsSauli Pusa and Jussi Huikari Page updated 12/06/2009
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