Methods for estimating radiation doses received by commercial aircrew

Introduction: Radiation doses received onboard aircraft are monitored in Europe to protect aircrew in accordance with a European Union directive. The French Aviation Authorities have developed a system called SIEVERT, using calculation codes to monitor effective radiation doses. Methods: For the galactic cosmic ray component, a 3-D world map of effective dose rates is computed using available operational codes. Detailed flight plans are used to ensure sufficient precision. For the solar particle event component, a semi-empirical model called SiGLE has been developed to calculate a time-dependent map of effective dose rates in the course of the event. SiGLE is based on particle transport code results and measurements during solar particle events onboard Concorde airplanes. Results: We present a comparison of the calculated effective radiation dose and measured dose equivalent for various flights onboard Air France aircraft. The agreement is within 15%, which is about the precision of the state-of-the-art dosimetric measurements. Meteorological effects on the dose calculation appear to be negligible. Preliminary results based on solar particle events observed since 1942 with ionization chambers and neutron monitors are given. Conclusions: The present analysis shows that for the galactic cosmic ray component, monthly world maps based on neutron monitor observations are sufficient to ensure a precision of about 20% on the dose estimate for each flight. For the past 40 yr, according to the model SiGLE, none of the solar events has given an effective radiation dose larger than 1 mSv for flights on the most exposed routes.