Cosmic radiation exposure of commercial flight crew.
Authors
Waters-MA; Bloom-TF; Grajewski-B
Source
Occupational Radiation Protection: Protecting Workers Against Exposure to Ionizing Radiation: Proceedings of an International Conference on Occupational Radiation Protection - Protecting Workers against Exposure to Ionizing Radiation, Geneva, Switzerland, August 26-30, 2002. Vienna, Austria: International Atomic Energy Agency, Publication CN-91, 2003 Jul; :406-409
Abstract
Flight crew are occupationally exposed to cosmic radiation at aircraft altitudes. Exposure estimates are needed for epidemiologic studies of flight crew and must be obtained from exposure models due to the infeasibility of measuring exposures directly on a large scale for prospective studies and the inability to address historical exposures for such studies. We measured cosmic radiation dose equivalent on 32 commercial flights using tissue-equivalent proportional counters and compared the measured doses to equivalent dose estimates for the same flights obtained from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration computer model CARI version 4Q. The measured dose equivalents ranged from 0.69 to 65.4 ILSV for flight times ranging from 49 to 851 minutes. The CARI-4Q model estimates of equivalent dose ranged from 11 % to 61 % lower than TEPC measurements of dose equivalent (n=32). In general less model bias was observed for low latitude and trans-equatorial flights than for high latitude flights. Differences in measured versus modeled data should be considered when estimating doses using a model for epidemiologic studies, and biases corrected where possible. These data will be used to correct CARI model estimates for our epidemiologic studies of flight crew.
Keywords
Radiation; Radiation-exposure; Radiation-measurement; Radiation-monitoring; Circadian-rhythms; Flight-personnel; Air-transportation; Aircrews; Altitude; Epidemiology; Exposure-levels; Occupational-exposure; Occupational-health; Ionizing-radiation; Pilots
Document Type
Conference/Symposia Proceedings
Source Name
Occupational Radiation Protection: Protecting Workers Against Exposure to Ionizing Radiation
