X-ray imaging of a museum artefact on site: Monte Carlo simulations for radiation protection evaluations

This work is part of a meticulous x-ray tomographic imaging study on an artefact belonging to the collections of Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia. Using a mobile x-ray source, where the artefact is normally kept, reduces and simplifies the procedures related to its preservation needs. Using a radiation source in rooms not previously classified required a prior estimate of the environmental dose and the exposure of the operators and population based on semiempirical models and measurements. That was the occasion to test the quality of Monte Carlo simulations based on a simplified model of the source and the environment. The measurement results validated the simulations for further dose estimations of the ambient dose equivalent rate.