High energy neutron response characteristics of a passive survey instrument for the determination of cosmic radiation fields in aircraft.

A passive survey instrument has been developed for the determination of cosmic radiation fields in aircraft. The instrument contains 30 TLDs and 36 PADC etched track detectors in order to obtain the required precision and an isotropic response. Two active electronic personal dosemeters are included to record the time profile of the field intensity. The instrument is robust and reliable, and is particularly useful to verify values of route doses based on calculations. The energy of the neutron component of the field to be determined extends to over 500 MeV, but with the majority of the dose equivalent below 200 MeV. The results are reported of measurements at Uppsala University and Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt of the response characteristics of the instrument to quasi-monoenergetic neutrons in the energy range 60 to 180 MeV and for monoenergetic neutrons of energy from 70 keV to 14.7 MeV.