Derivation of External Exposure Characteristics of Industrial Radiography Based on Empirical Evidence

Background: This study aims to derive the characteristics of each work type for industrial radiography based on empirical evidence through expert advice and a survey of radiation workers of various types of industrial radiography.Materials and Methods: According to a Korean report, work types of industrial radiography are classified into indoor tests, underground pipe tests, tests in a shielded room (radiographic testing [RT] room test), outdoor field tests, and outdoor large structure tests. For each work type, exposure geometry and radiation sources were mainly identified through the expert advice and workers’ survey as reliable empirical evidence.Results and Discussion: The expert advice and survey results were consistent as the proportion of the work types were high in the order of RT room test, outdoor large structure test, underground pipe test, outdoor field test, and indoor test. The outdoor large structure test is the highest exposure risk work type in the industrial radiography. In most types of industrial radiography, radiation workers generally used 192Ir as the main source. In the results of the survey, the portion of sources was high in the order of 192Ir, X-ray generator, 60Co, and 75Se. As the exposure geometry, the antero-posterior geometry is dominant, and the rotational and isotropic geometry should be also considered with the work type.Conclusion: In this study, through expert advice and a survey, the external exposure characteristics for each work type of industrial radiography workers were derived. This information will be used in the reconstruction of organ dose for health effects assessment of Korean radiation workers.