Dosimetric performance requirements for the routine dose assessment of external radiation

Dosimetric performance requirements must take the following into consideration: general radiation protection requirements established by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), workplace conditions prevailing during (routine) work, and technical requirements set by international or national bodies. For performance tests the general requirements on the precision of dose measurements can be represented by the 'trumpet curves'. For photon radiation several measurements of the workplace conditions are reported. The main conclusions drawn from these measurements are the following: the photon energy range from 20 keV to 2 MeV, or even 7 MeV, is of importance for individual monitoring. The range of directions of radiation incidence on the dosemeter is very large, nearly the frontal hemisphere or even rotating, and almost all spectra are broad with respect to energy. In view of the great variety of workplace conditions, the scope of most of the technical requirements is not sufficiently great. No technical requirement is at present fully in accordance with the general principles of an uncertainty analysis.