Anthropomorphic phantom for effective dose measurements: Feasibility numerical study and presentation of the detector development

This paper presents the current state of a project from the laboratory of ionizing radiation dosimetry of the IRSN (France) concerning the development of an instrumented anthropomorphic phantom for the direct measurement of the effective dose. Contrary to other applications fields where anthropomorphic phantoms are currently used (radiotherapy dose control or spatial studies), the main challenge of this project is to develop small detectors to place inside the phantom sensible to the low-dose rates found at workplaces. A numerical study for photon irradiation fields has proved the feasibility of such an instrument and has determined the positions of the detectors for each organ in order to correctly evaluate the effective dose. Some results of this numerical study are presented here as well as a preliminary schematic description of the prototype detector. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved