Measurement and Calculation of the Absorbed Dose During Irradiation of the Grain by a Pulse Electron Beam with Energy up to 160 keV

The paper presents the results of measuring the absorbed dose, performed using dosimetric films on a wide-aperture pulse-periodic electron accelerator “DUET” with a grid plasma cathode based on a low-pressure arc discharge and the output of the generated beam into the ambient atmosphere. The possibility of using this accelerator to irradiate wheat, barley, oats, peas, and corn has been previously shown. In this work, we performed numerical calculations of the distribution of the absorbed dose over the grain depth. Calculations show that the absorbed dose depends on the initial energy of the electron beam (in the range 100-160 keV) and is distributed substantially non-uniformly. The main absorbed dose is concentrated in the outer layer (seed coat of grain), while the absorbed dose in the inner part of the grain was four orders of magnitude lower. The results of numerical calculations are consistent with experimental measurements.