Absorbed dose water calorimeter.

Advantage was taken of the low thermal diffusivity of water and the imperviousness of polyethylene film to water to construct a calorimeter for directly measuring absorbed dose in that medium. An ultrasmall bead thermistor was sandwiched between two thin films stretched on polystyrene rings and immersed in an unregulated water bath. Ten cobalt-60 irradiation runs were made with a precision of 0.5% mean error of the mean at a dose rate of 66 mGy/s. Further development is directed toward a standard instrument that can be used in a medical therapy beam.