ABSTRACT
Dosimetry is particularly important in the research leading to a given process and the commissioning of that process. The techniques of dosimetry are now sufficiently established in food irradiation to provide one of the most reliable means of quality control. The primary aim of dosimetry is to determine the quantity absorbed dose, D, at points of interest in a given absorbing medium. One of the most direct and useful dosimetry methods employed in food irradiation is calorimetry. Calorimetric dosimetry may involve either complex arrangement using adiabatic enclosures containing reference cells and calibration heat sources or relatively simple quasi-adiabatic or bare heat sensors that lose heat to the surroundings exponentially with time. Successful methods of dosimetry for use within a given laboratory or simultaneously in separate laboratories include those that give reproducible and accurate dose readings, as long as the response is properly calibrated in terms of radiation effect-vs.-dose and sources of systematic error are accounted for.
