title: Assessment of the uncertainties in the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) radon measurements service.
abstract: The RPII radon (Rn) laboratory holds accreditation for the International Standard ISO/IEC 17025. A requirement of this standard is an estimate of the uncertainty of measurement. This work shows two approaches to estimate the uncertainty. The bottom-up approach involved identifying the components that were found to contribute to the uncertainty. Estimates were made for each of these components, which were combined to give a combined uncertainty of 13.5% at a Rn concentration of approximately 2500 Bq m(-3) at the 68% confidence level. By applying a coverage factor of k=2, the expanded uncertainty is +/-27% at the 95% confidence level. The top-down approach used information previously gathered from intercomparison exercises to estimate the uncertainty. This investigation found an expanded uncertainty of +/-22% at approximately 95% confidence level. This is good agreement for such independent estimates.
authors.affiliation: Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, 3 Clonskeagh Square, Clonskeagh Road, Dublin 14, Ireland. ohanley@rpii.ie
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Hanley
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez-Villanueva
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Currivan
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pollard
mesh_terms: D007494:Ireland; D011834:Radiation Monitoring / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011886:Radon / Q000032:analysis*; D035501:Uncertainty
chemical_list: D011886:Radon