Evaluating the uncertainty in measurement of occupational exposure with personal dosemeters

In the 1990 Recommendations of the ICRP it is stated that an uncertainty in a dose measured with a personal dosemeter under workplace conditions of a factor 1.5 in either direction 'will not be unusual'. In many documents similar to the EU Technical recommendations, the IAEA Safety Guides and papers in scientific journals, this statement is understood to be a basis for developing type-test criteria and criteria for the approval of dosimetric systems. The methods for evaluating the standard uncertainty as proposed in the above mentioned documents and in national and international standards use an approach that is based on the Law of Propagation of Uncertainties (LPU). This approach needs a number of assumptions, the validity of which cannot easily be verified for personal dosemeters. The current paper presents a numerical method based on Monte Carlo simulation for the calculation phase of the evaluation of uncertainties. The results of applying the method on the type-test data of the NRG TL-dosemeter indicate that the combined standard uncertainty estimated using the LPU approach might well not be realistic. The numerical method is simple and can be precisely formulated, making it suitable for being part of approval or accreditation procedures.