Determination of personal dose equivalents in accelerator radiation fields

Values for the dose equivalent are required for radiation protection purposes, but determination of such values can be quite difficult for high energy radiations. The accurate determination of personal dose equivalents in accelerator radiation fields requires the propel use of appropriate radiological quantities and units, knowledge of the dose equivalent response of the personal dosemeters used, measurement or calculation of the fluence spectrum in the workplace and the fluence spectrum of the reference radiation used to calibrate the dosemeters, in addition to knowledge of the appropriate fluence-to-dose equivalent conversion coefficients. This information can then be used to select the appropriate dosemeters, set up the optimum calibration conditions, or to establish correction factors that account for differences in the calibration and workplace fluence spectra. High energy neutrons account for a significant fraction of the dose equivalent received by workers at accelerator facilities, and this work discusses the procedures and methods needed to determine dose equivalent produced by neutrons in the vicinity of high energy particle accclerators.