Book Description

Aqueous solutions of ferrous ammonium sulfate with cupric chloride were studied as a means for determining the uniformity of the dose rate around a multikilocurie cylindrical array of cobalt-60. Ferric ion was measured spectrophotometrically at 305 millimicrons. The solution selected to satisfy the requirements for dosimetry contained 0.0005 M ferrous ammonium sulfate and 0.005 M cupric chloride in 0.001 N sulfuric acid. Spectrophotometric measurements of ferric ion were made in solutions brought to 0.15 N acid concentration, instead of the conventional 0.8 N, in order to minimize spurious oxidation. The molar extinction coefficient at this normality proved to be the same as that in 0.8 N solutions. The G value, as compared to the standard ferrous-ferric dosimeter, was 0.65. Using these solutions, no detectable variation in dose rate was found at symmetrically equivalent positions at the center of the cobalt-60 source. The average dose rate at each end of the cylindrical array proved to be 12 percent lower than that at the center. The dose rate was also less uniform at the ends, varying by = 4 percent from point-to-point. At a distance of fifteen inches from the center of the source array, the dose rate decreased as the square of the distance. (Author).