Abstract
The CERF facility at CERN provides an almost unique high-energy workplace reference radiation field for the calibration and test of radiation protection instrumentation employed at high-energy accelerator facilities and for aircraft and space dosimetry. This paper describes the main features of the facility and supplies a non-exhaustive list of recent (as of 2005) applications for which CERF is used. Upgrade work started in 2015 to provide the scientific and industrial communities with a state-of-the-art reference facility is also discussed.
Highlights
Neutron calibrations often need to be performed with neutron energies or spectral distributions very much different from those generated by radioactive sources such as Am-Be and Cf-252, employed in standard calibration laboratories
This is highlighted by refs. [1] and [2], which call for the simulation of the neutron energy spectra encountered in the vicinity of high-energy accelerator facilities and in high-flying aircrafts, since high-energy neutrons can deliver a significant fraction of the ambient dose equivalent
Since many years CERF at CERN provides a simulated workplace reference field similar to the ones encountered in the proximity of high-energy accelerators and at cruising altitudes in civil aviation
Summary
Neutron calibrations often need to be performed with neutron energies or spectral distributions very much different from those generated by radioactive sources such as Am-Be and Cf-252, employed in standard calibration laboratories. The CERF facility [3], set-up at CERN in the early nineties, provides mixed radiation fields representative of those found outside the shielding of high-energy hadron accelerators and sufficiently similar to the cosmic ray field encountered at 10-20 km altitude. This allows instrumentation to be tested, inter-compared and calibrated at CERN and subsequently used for either inflight measurements on aircrafts or radiation protection surveys around particle accelerators. This work describes the facility, lists its main applications, provides some representative results and illustrates the upgrade program started in 2015 to provide the scientific and industrial communities with an improved, state-of-the-art reference workplace facility
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