Pass/fail Criterion for a Simple Radiation Portal Monitor Test

Year
2012
Author(s)
Tom Burr - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Tom Burr - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Avigdor Gavron - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Avigdor Gavron - Los Alamos National Laboratory
Abstract
One of the simplest tests of a radiation portal monitor (RPM) is a series of n repeats (a vehicle drive-through) in which the i th repeat records a total number of counts Xi and alarms if Xi = T where T is an alarm threshold. The RPM performance tests we consider use n repeats to estimate the probability p = P(Xi = T). This paper addresses criterion A for testing RPMs, where criterion A is: for specified source strength, we must be at least 95% confident that p ? 0.5 . To assess criterion A, we consider a distribution-free test and a test relying on assuming the counts Xi have approximately a Poisson distribution. Both test options require tolerance interval construction.