Evaluation of Effective Sources in Uncertainty Measurements of Personal Dosimetry by a Harshaw TLD System

Background: The accurate results of the individual doses in personal dosimety which are reported by the service providers in personal dosimetry are very important. There are national / international criteria for acceptable dosimetry system performance.Objective: In this research, the sources of uncertainties are identified, measured and calculated in a personal dosimetry system by TLD.Method: These sources are included; inhomogeneity of TLDs sensitivity, variabil- ity of TLD readings due to limited sensitivity and background, energy dependence, directional dependence, non-linearity of the response, fading, dependent on ambient temperature / humidity and calibration errors, which may affect on the dose responses. Some parameters which influence on the above sources of uncertainty are studied for Harshaw TLD-100 cards dosimeters as well as the hot gas Harshaw 6600 TLD reader system.Results: The individual uncertainties of each sources was measured less than 6.7% in 68% confidence level. The total uncertainty was calculated 17.5% with 95% confi- dence level.Conclusion: The TLD-100 personal dosimeters as well as the Harshaw TLD-100 reader 6600 system show the total uncertainty value which is less than that of admis- sible value of 42% for personal dosimetry services.