Dosimetric evaluation of a chilled X-Ray irradiator

A new chilled X-ray system for insect irradiation was evaluated dosimetrically. The system was capable of irradiating up to 40 million sterile male mosquitoes per week with a DUR of 1.3 or better. Dosimetry was by GafchromicTM EBT-XD film, scanned at 75 dpi 24 hours after exposure and the color channel information extracted to Excel for processing. Files consist of tiff scans and Excel files of extracted and analysed data, the file names indicate the conditions under which the films were exposed as follows: film sequence number(s) (03-52); -Dnn.n, SSD in cm; -Fl, load flipped over at half exposure time; -R, load rotated, -T|M|B, top, middle or bottom plane of the load; -kVnnn, anode voltage in kV; -Ann.n, anode current in mA; -snnn, exposure time in seconds; -dnn, load depth reduced to, in cm; -r2, load displaced 2 cm right relative to initial exposures. Excel file names include a final component -6|6g indicating that 6 × 6 blocks of pixel values were added to reduce the final resolution to 2mm, g indicating the color channel. File name elements are excluded where they do not apply.