| The purpose of the research is to develop improved ways to compute and measure the beta skin dose. Beta spectra for the various sources were calculated based on the Fermi beta decay theory. The calculated average energies of the spectra agreed with the literature values within 6%. Monte Carlo electron transport codes have been developed for use on microcomputers. The one-dimensional code ZEBRA has been converted to a microcomputer version called Eltran2 which runs on the Macintosh or any IBM compatible microcomputers. Eltran2 has then been modified into a two-dimensional program called Eltran3. Using Eltran2 and Eltran3, different source distributions and the hot particle dose have been studied. It has been found that the VARSKIN code overestimates the skin dose from hot particles by about 10 to 40% in comparison with Eltran3 calculations, because the VARSKIN code is based on the data tables for an unbounded medium.; An ion-implanted silicon detector was selected because of its small size, high sensitivity, and low leakage current. To cover a wide range of dose rate, both the pulse and current mode operations of the silicon detector were used, with an overlap of one order of magnitude in the measurable dose rate ranges. By using a gradient shield of about 7 mg/cm{dollar}sp2{dollar} on the detector, dose gradient measurements have been performed. Five {dollar}sp{lcub}60{rcub}{dollar}Co hot particles received from GPU Nuclear Corporation have been measured by the silicon detector and the measurements agreed well with Eltran3 calculations. In the pulse mode, variation of the depletion depth of the silicon detector due to the changes of bias voltage was confirmed.; Based on this research, a prototype beta skin dose monitor has been constructed. The device includes an 8-bit analogue-to-digital converter and a Z-80 microprocessor with a machine-coded program, to calculate the skin dose. The device covers more than five orders of magnitude in the measurable beta skin dose rate ranges. It has been calibrated using an extrapolation chamber and then successfully used to measure the dose rates produced by several different beta and beta/gamma sources. |
