Simulation of the response of an ionization chamber to 214Bi emission. Application to the measurement of 222Rn

Sylvie Pierre; Cheick Thiam; Philippe Cassette; Xavier Mougeot; Abhilasha Singh

doi:10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108886

Simulation of the response of an ionization chamber to ²¹⁴Bi emission. Application to the measurement of ²²²Rn

Appl Radiat Isot. 2019 Dec:154:108886. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108886. Epub 2019 Sep 5.

Authors

Sylvie Pierre¹, Cheick Thiam², Philippe Cassette², Xavier Mougeot², Abhilasha Singh²

Affiliations

¹ CEA, LIST, Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (LNE-LNHB), Bât 602, PC111, CEA-Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, Cedex, France. Electronic address: sylvie.pierre@cea.fr.
² CEA, LIST, Laboratoire National Henri Becquerel (LNE-LNHB), Bât 602, PC111, CEA-Saclay, 91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, Cedex, France.

PMID: 31539710
DOI: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2019.108886

Abstract

PENELOPE simulations of a Vinten ionization chamber (IC) were performed to investigate the influence of the thickness of glass-ampoules used in ²²²Rn standardization. The simulation reveals a non-negligible variation of the energy deposited in the chamber gas region (which may induce a proportional variation of the measured current) when considering the β transition emissions of the daughters of ²²²Rn. This reinforces the idea of using a specialist container (made of metal to preserve the integrity of the container) that would circulate between the metrology laboratories in the context of international comparison exercises using the BIPM international reference system (SIR).

Keywords: Ionization chamber; Monte Carlo simulation; PENELOPE; Radionuclide metrology; Radon.