Staying Safe When Performing Radiography

Radiography is a commonly used technique in the industry to evaluate the structural integrity of a structure, or to search for less visible details. It's one of the most common methods, in fact. Because radiography involves the use of large amounts ionizing radiation, safety is integral for the technician, the public, and the environment. In this post we'll be talking about radiation safety in the workplace.

Radiation Protection and Dose Limitation

The International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP) has a set of guidelines when it comes to radiation dose limitations:

1. No radiation practice shall be justified until it produces a net positive benefit.
2. Doses received during radiation work should be as low as reasonably achievable.
3. The dose limit should not exceed prescribed limits.

This limit is put in place in order to prevent deterministic effects and limit probabilistic effects. As the deterministic effects have specific threshold values, they can be avoided by lowering the dose value below the threshold value. The probabilistic effects, on the other hand, don't have any threshold value. Because of this, a certain amount of risk is always involved with radiation work proportional to the dose received.