Abstract

The materials which compose the ICRP Voxel phantoms used in the computation of conversion coefficients involve neutron interaction cross-sections that have resonances at specific energies. Depending on the energy bin structure used in the computations, these cross-section resonances may occur at energies that fall between energies at which dose coefficients are computed, thus their effects may not be completely accounted for in the reported coefficients. Here In this study, a highly refined energy grid that closely follows the resonance structure in the phantom material cross-sections was identified and used to calculate dose coefficients. Both the equivalent organ/tissue doses for male and female voxel phantoms were computed as well as their summation to obtain the effective dose coefficients. The used refined energy grid tracks very closely the cross-sections in the vicinity of the resonances. The resulting refined energy grid coefficients are compared to coefficients for the coarser energy grid used in ICRP Publication 116. Additionally, reference spectra have been folded with both the fine and coarse sets of conversion coefficients. The resulting total effective doses for these reference spectra are used to assess the adequacy of the dose coefficients calculated on the original ICRP 116 energy grid. The dose coefficients weremore » similarly computed for the local skin dose on the trunk of the body using the ICRU Report 95 phantom. The overall impact of the resonances on the organ/tissue equivalent dose, the effective dose, and the local skin dose are presented and discussed. In general, it was found that resonances can impact neutron dose coefficients, but in most cases the wide range of neutron energies encountered minimized this effect. The impact of resonances was further limited when computing effective dose due to organ/tissue summing and sex-averaging. For the neutron fields studied here, the impact was below 5%.« less

Authors:

Hiller, Mauritius M. ^[1]; Veinot, Ken G. ^[2]; Hertel, Nolan E. ^[3]

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. RadCon GmbH, Augsburg (Germany)
2. Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
3. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)

Publication Date:

Sun Feb 04 00:00:00 EST 2024

Research Org.:

Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant (Y-12), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE

OSTI Identifier:

2327012

Grant/Contract Number:  

NA0001942

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Radiation and Environmental Biophysics

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 63; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 0301-634X

Publisher:

Springer

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; cross-section resonances; ICRP voxel phantom; dose coefficients