Uncertainty budget for a whole body counter in the scan geometry and computer simulation of the calibration phantoms

Abstract

At the Austrian Research Centers Seibersdorf (ARCS), a whole body counter (WBC) in the scan geometry is used to perform routine measurements for the determination of radioactive intake of workers. The calibration of the WBC is made using bottle phantoms with a homogeneous activity distribution. The same calibration procedures have been simulated using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) code and FLUKA and the results of the full energy peak efficiencies for eight energies and five phantoms have been compared with the experimental results. The deviation between experiment and simulation results is within 10%. Furthermore, uncertainty budget evaluations have been performed to find out which parameters make substantial contributions to these differences. Therefore, statistical errors of the Monte Carlo simulation, uncertainties in the cross section tables and differences due to geometrical considerations have been taken into account. Comparisons between these results and the one with inhomogeneous distribution, for which the activity is concentrated only in certain parts of the body (such as head, lung, arms and legs), have been performed. The maximum deviation of 43% from the homogeneous case has been found when the activity is concentrated on the arms.