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Calibrations
In this section:
- General information
- Irradiations
- Calibration of diagnostic x-ray dosemeters
- Calibration of non-invasive kVp meters
- Calibration of radiation survey meters
- Calibration of radiotherapy dosemeters
General Information
NRL offers radiation measuring instrument calibration services to a range of customers involved in industry, medicine, and research.
The facilities maintained at NRL in support of the calibration service include:
- primary and secondary standards of radiation exposure
- a protection level 137Cs exposure facility
- a therapy level 60Co exposure facility
- a 10 kV – 300 kV x-ray exposure facility
- calibrated mammography and general radiography x-ray plants
For further information please contact the Calibrations Team.
Australian customers interested in our calibration service should contact our agent: Australian Radiation Services Pty. Ltd.
Irradiations
The NRL calibration service maintains phantoms and beam set-ups that conform to the requirements of ISO standard 4037. Using these beams, and data from the standard enables NRL to deliver irradiations to personal dosemeters for the purpose of calibration in terms of the ICRU operational quantities, HP(0.07) and HP(10).
X-ray beams used for the irradiations have peak voltages in the range 20 kV – 300 kV. The 662 keV, and 1.25 MeV emissions from 137Cs and 60Co are also available for irradiations.
The irradiations are traceable to either NRL primary standards of exposure, or to Australian National Standards of exposure.
For further information please contact the Calibrations Team.
Australian customers interested in our calibration service should contact our agent: Australian Radiation Services Pty. Ltd.
Calibration of Diagnostic X-ray Dosemeters
For clients using diagnostic dosemeters, NRL offers standard calibration products that suit the following measurement applications:
- Dental x-ray machine outputs
- Mammography x-ray machine outputs
- CT x-ray machine outputs (flood irradiation of pencil chambers)
- Patient entrance doses for general radiography, and doserates for fluoroscopy
- AEC input doses and image intensifier input doserates
- X-ray tube leakage
- Patient scatter levels
For clients with measurement applications not covered by the above categories, NRL will most likely be able to tailor a calibration product that meets your needs.
The calibrations are traceable to either NRL primary standards of exposure, or to Australian National Standards of exposure.
For further information please contact the Calibrations Team.
Australian customers interested in our calibration service should contact our agent: Australian Radiation Services Pty. Ltd.
Calibration of Non-invasive kVp Meters
NRL maintains x-ray plants that are representative of the x-ray plants used for general radiography, fluoroscopy, and mammography. These x-ray plants are used to offer a calibration service for non-invasive kVp meters. The calibrations offered cover the following uses:
- Radiography: 50 kVp – 150 kVp
- Fluoroscopy: 70 kVp – 110 kVp
- Mammography: 25 kVp – 31 kVp
Calibration of the kVp settings on the x-ray plants used has been performed in terms of peak spectrum energy using high purity germanium detector spectrometry, and is traceable to fundamental physical constants in the form of known radionuclide gamma ray emission energies.
For further information please contact the Calibrations Team.
Australian customers interested in our calibration service should contact our agent: Australian Radiation Services Pty. Ltd.
Calibration of Radiation Survey Meters
A 137Cs exposure facility is maintained for the calibration of portable radiation protection survey instruments. Air kerma rates available for calibration are in the range 4 µGy/hr – 800 µGy/hr.
The following instrument tests can be performed:
- Calibration of the instrument in rate-mode operation
- Calibration of the instrument in integrate-mode operation
- Test of alarm function
- Test of instrument performance under high doserate conditions
Calibrations are traceable to US National Standards of exposure for 137Cs held by NIST.
For further information please contact the Calibrations Team.
Australian customers interested in our calibration service should contact our agent: Australian Radiation Services Pty. Ltd.
Calibration of Radiotherapy Dosemeters
Calibrations for superficial and orthovoltage therapy dosimetry:
Exposure calibrations are provided in the range 15 kV – 300 kV.
Matching to the customer's beam qualities is achieved by providing
calibrations at standard qualities that bound the required quality.
The customer can then interpolate on the basis of the beam HVL to
obtain the required calibration factor. Calibrations are
traceable to the NRL primary standards of exposure, or to the
Australian National Standard of exposure.
Calibrations for megavoltage therapy dosimetry:
Air kerma calibration factors traceable to the Australian National Standard of exposure for 60Co can be provided for all chamber types. Absorbed dose to water calibrations suitable for use with the absorbed dose to water dosimetry protocol TRS398 can be provided for NE2571 (or equivalent) chambers. Absorbed dose to water calibrations are traceable to the Australian National Standard of absorbed dose to water for 60Co.
Note that for ease of transport, NRL does not require a constancy check source to accompany therapy dosemeters for calibration. NRL suggests that customers perform constancy checks to confirm consistent response of the instrument prior and subsequent to the calibration at NRL.
For further information please contact the Calibrations Team.
Australian customers interested in our calibration service should contact our agent: Australian Radiation Services Pty. Ltd.