Feasibility Study of Using PAGAT Polymer Gel Dosimeter for 3D Dosimetry Around the Reactor Core

An important problem for samples irradiation in research reactors is determination of three dimensional dose distributions in the vicinity of reactor core. Polymer gel dosimeters can be used to measure complex three dimensional dose distributions as well as the integrated dose accurately with no dependency on the dose rate. Furthermore, as they are tissue-equivalent, they may be used as a phantom. So far, polymer gel dosimeters have been used for photon, electron, proton, neutron and heavy ions, but there is a lack of application of polymer gel dosimeters for dosimetry of the mixed field of radiation of different linear ionization concentration. In this research, PAGAT polymer gel dosimeters are fabricated in the laboratory and then were irradiated with the mixed neutron gamma field from the fission process of the Tehran Research Reactor. The gel response was determined by the nuclear magnetic resonance imaging technique as a change in the relaxation rate (R2) of the gel dosimeters. The gel response as a function of normalized dose was investigated and a bi-exponential fitting was adjusted to the dose-R2 data. The region with a linear response, is called dynamic range. The slope of the region as the sensitivity of PAGAT gels to the normalized dose resulted from the neutron-gamma mixed field, was estimated to be 1.695 s-1. The results of this research showed that PAGAT polymer gel dosimeter is a useful tool for 3D dose distribution to determine the neutron gamma mixed field.