Spectrally average conversion coefficients for air kerma to ambient dose equivalent for clinical linear accelerator

This work aims to calculate the conversion coefficients from air kerma to ambient dose equivalent, H*(10)/Kair for photon beams produced by linear accelerators, such as the Clinac-4, Clinac-6, Clinac-18 and Clinac-2500, after transmission through primary barriers of radiotherapy treatment rooms. Concrete walls of thickness 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 m were irradiated with 30 cm×30 cm primary beam spectra. The transmitted spectra were calculated to obtain the conversion coefficients for beams found in radiotherapy services. The calculations were done using the MCNP-4B Monte Carlo code. The results indicate the need to use a factor of about 1.20 to obtain the ambient dose equivalent for radiation surveys near primary barriers using instruments calibrated in air kerma.