Development of and effective dose coefficient database using a computational human phantom and Monte Carlo simulations to evaluate exposure dose for the usage of NORM-added consumer products

Abstract

After the Fukushima accident in Japan, the Korean Government implemented the “Act on Protective Action Guidelines Against Radiation in the Natural Environment” to regulate unnecessary radiation exposure to the public. However, despite the law which came into effect in July 2012, an appropriate method to evaluate the equivalent and effective doses from naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) in consumer products is not available. The aim of the present study is to develop and validate an effective dose coefficient database enabling the simple and correct evaluation of the effective dose due to the usage of NORM-added consumer products. To construct the database, we used a skin source method with a computational human phantom and Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. For the validation, the effective dose was compared between the database using interpolation method and the original MC method. Our result showed a similar equivalent dose across the 26 organs and a corresponding average dose between the database and the MC calculations of < 5% difference. The differences in the effective doses were even less, and the result generally show that equivalent and effective doses can be quickly calculated with the database with sufficient accuracy.