Validation of the New NTUU Flight Dose Calculator with the ICRU-84 Reference Data

摘要

Aircrew and passengers are exposed to cosmic radiation on every flight. The radiation field at flight altitudes is complex because high-energy cosmic rays create cascades of interactions and various reaction products. The absolute intensities and energy spectra of secondary cosmic rays in the atmosphere vary with numerous factors (e.g., altitude, geomagnetic cutoff rigidity, and solar activity) and difficult to measure accurately. Aviation route doses are usually estimated by assessment codes, such as CARI[1], EPCARD [2], SIEVERT[3], and so on., which were almost developed based on numerical simulations or empirical models. The authors also developed a similar code called the NT11U Flight Dose Calculator [4] for estimating aviation route doses and cumulative spectra of cosmic rays in the atmosphere. The validity of the dose calculator in route dose calculations has been verified by comparing its predictions of 23 flights with the anonymous results of 11 similar codes summarized in EURADOS Report 2012-03 [5]. The overall agreement between the results predicted by our dose calculator and those 11 codes was satisfactory, within -20% of the median values. In addition to code inter-comparisons, performing benchmarks with traceable measurements is always favorable and essential for our code to be accredited and certified. In approaching this goal, the authors conducted this study aiming to validate the latest version of NTHU Flight Dose Calculator with the ICRU-84 reference data [6], which provides values of ambient-dose-equivalent rate derived from measurements onboard aircraft in the literature.