Bronchial dosimeter for radon progeny

A true bronchial dosimeter has been designed, consisting of four 400-mesh w ire screens and a filter paper. With a face velocity of 3.3 cm s(-1) for ho me exposure and 4.6 cm s(-1) for mine exposure, the deposition pattern on t he wire screens were found to satisfactorily match the variation of the dos e conversion factor (in units of mSv WLM-1) with the size of radon progeny from 1 to 1000 nm. In this way, the bronchial dosimeter directly gives bron chial dose from the alpha counts recorded on the wire-screens and the filte r paper. Calculations of the dose conversion coefficient (DCC) using the pr oposed bronchial dosimeter and the lung dosimetric model were performed for typical aerosol characteristics. Values obtained from the bronchial dosime ter yielded overestimates of the DCC by 11.1% and 2.4% for typical home and mine conditions, respectively. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.