X-ray security scanners for personnel and vehicle control: dose quantities and dose values.

After the security related occurrences in the past few years, there is an increasing need for airport security and border controls. In the combat against terror and smuggling, X-rays are used for the screening of persons and vehicles. The exposure of humans to ionising radiation raises the question of justification. To solve this question, reliable and traceable dose values are needed. A research project of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety was initiated. Its task is to measure the ambient dose equivalent, H*(10), and the personal dose equivalent, H(p)(10), for typical types of personnel and vehicle X-ray scanners, using the transmission and/or backscatter method. In the following, the measuring quantities which are to be used for these investigations will be discussed and the measuring instruments will be presented. Furthermore, the experimental set-up is described. For the personnel X-ray scanners investigated, the obtained dose values are in the range from 0.07 to 6 microSv. These values will be compared to the dose values of the natural environmental radiation and some exposures in the field of medicine.