REAL-TIME CONFIRMATION OF ELECTRON-BEAM DOSE

A new development in electron beam irradiation offers the opportunity to make real time measurements during irradiation to enhance quality a ssurance measures. With the new CDose(TM) scheme, the product identity and an image of the two dimensional product dose are presented to the operator as a moving electrographic image and stored to provide a per manent record of the irradiation. The electrographic images show each item on the tray and provides a non-intrusive method of assuring the o rientation and packing of each item. The prescribed integrated-dose is also assured by the image. The image is produced by collecting the el ectron current from the accelerator's beam stop and plotting the calcu lated product dose as a function of the instantaneous beam and tray po sition. The techniques described in this paper are most useful when ir radiating high value items such as advanced composite aircraft parts o r medical devices where evidence is required to show that each unit wa s processed correctly.