Radiation Metrology

An industrialized country, with the technological needs of the modern era, relies on measurement methods based on comparison between objects measured against known objects, termed standards. These standards are the result of a combination of acumen or ingenuity, science, and cutting-edge technologies. They must be available and usable nationwide for all types of measurements and all physical quantities, failure to do so resulting in inaccurate measurements. Measurement standards attain the highest level of accuracy achievable and serve as reference value. Through the National Institute of Ionizing Radiation Metrology, ENEA designs, builds, develops, and maintains national standards for physical quantities of ionising radiation.

The National Institute of Ionizing Radiation Metrology is responsible for:

• ensuring its role on a national level, assigned to ENEA by means of the law setting up a national metrology body, no. 273 of 11 August 1991, “Istituzione del sistema nazionale di taratura“, as National Metrology Institutein the domain of ionising radiation, maintaining and developing instrumentation for standard measurements in accordance with internationally recommended quality specifications; 
• undertaking the functions assigned to ENEA in the field of certification of procedures and tests for homologation of measurement instruments within the ambit of the EU and to meet the obligations regarding calibration and the criteria for approval of dosimeters used in radiation protection (D.lgs. (legislative decree) N. 101/2020 of 31 July 2020).

The priority lines of intervention are:

• primary standardsand standardization of measurement methods: research and development in the field of absolute measurement of ionising radiation, for the purposes of production and qualitative development of national primary standards and methods of measurement of ionising radiation in the various applications, to ensure measurement traceability to the national standards;
• Certification and accreditation: calibration, with traceability to the national standards, of instruments measuring ionising radiation quantities that are used in the fields of medicine, the environment, and industry; technical support towards accreditation of Secondary Standards Dosimetry Laboratories in Italy, in accordance with the technical requisites set forth by the pertaining international bodies; certification of all actions undertaken in accordance with law 273/91.