Applied Radiation and Isotopes 100 (2015) 60–64

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Applied Radiation and Isotopes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apradiso

kVp estimate intercomparison between Unfors XI, Radcal 4075 and a

new CDTN multipurpose instrument
A.T. Baptista Neto n, B.B. Oliveira, L.O. Faria
Nuclear Technology Development Center – CDTN/CNEN, Av. Presidente Antônio Carlos, 6627 – Campus UFMG, Pampulha, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, MG,
Brazil

H I G H L I G H T S

 We compare the kVp estimate between CDTN instrument and 2 different kVp meters.
 The new CDTN multipurpose instrument performance was found to be satisfactory.
 All instruments increase kVp estimative for increasing additional filtration.
 They are suitable for quality control routines in x-ray diagnostic radiology.

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this work we compare the kVp estimate between CDTN multipurpose instrument, UnforsXI and Radcal
Received 9 July 2014 4075 meters under different combinations of voltage and filtration. The non-invasively measurements
Received in revised form made using x-ray diagnostic and interventional radiology devices show similar tendencies to increase
18 November 2014
the kVp estimate when aluminum filters are placed in the path of the x-ray beam. The results reveal that
Accepted 24 November 2014
the kVp estimate made by the CDTN multipurpose instrument is always satisfactory for highly filtered
Available online 26 November 2014
beam intensities.
Keywords: & 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Radiation detector
Peak voltage
X-ray

1. Introduction requires significant time and experience (ICRU, 2005). Routinely,

In response to the increasing use of ionizing radiation in
medicine, to the risks therein involved and to the need of enfor-
cing radiation-protection policies, many countries have issued
technical regulations defining basic radiation protection require-
ments and guidelines for the use of devices that generate a series
of radiation qualities. Special attention is given to x-ray equipment
that is routinely used for both common diagnostic radiology and
interventional radiology. The latter utilizes minimally invasive
image-guided procedures to diagnose and treat diseases in nearly
every organ system (IAEA, 2006).
The x-ray spectrum is defined as the energy distribution of the
radiation produced in an x-ray exposure (Nickoloff and Berman,
1993). The determination of photon spectral distribution as a
function of photon energy is usually necessary to completely
characterize x-ray beams. However, performing these procedures
n patient because interactions between x-ray photons and tissue
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: annibal@cdtn.br (A.T. Baptista Neto),
boliveira.mg@gmail.com (B.B. Oliveira), farialo@cdtn.br (L.O. Faria).
the practical characterization of an x-ray beam quality is based on
the determination of other parameters, including the voltage ap-
plied to the tube electrodes, or kVp (Bushberg et al., 2012; IEC,
2005; IAEA, 2000; ISO, 1996).
The beam filtration modifies the quality of the x-ray beam by
preferentially removing the low-energy photons in the spectrum;
furthermore, higher Z materials cause further beam hardening
(Seibert and Boone, 2005). Non-invasive kVp meters use this
principle to relate the applied voltage to the x-ray emission
equipment, forcing the beam to cross a metal sheet with enough
thickness, therefore shielding most of the low energy photons. The
mean energy of the photons remaining in the beam is tightly
correlated to the applied voltage when the beam crosses two fil-
ters of different thicknesses (Joseph and Wilson, 1982; Aichinger
and Kranberg, 1983; Ranallo et al., 1990).
Considering radiology exposures, the radiation quality influ-
ences the balance between image quality and dose applied to the
vary with photon energy. Metal filters are fitted to x-ray tubes to
attenuate lower energy photons that would be completely

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apradiso.2014.11.019
0969-8043/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 A.T. Baptista Neto et al. / Applied Radiation and Isotopes 100 (2015) 60–64
absorbed by patients without contributing to radiological ex-
aminations, unnecessarily adding to the examination dose (Martin,
2007). A filter equivalent to at least 2.5 mmAl is required by
guidelines (IPEM, 2002), being oftentimes incorporated as stan-
dard accessory in medical x-ray tubes, but additional filters may be
inserted. Once installed, filters in conventional radiographic units
are seldom altered. However, during quality control procedures in
x-ray equipment, we observed that, in most cases, when half-value
layer lies below acceptance criteria and, consequently, the patient
dose is relatively high when compared to limit values, the cause is
usually related to the removal of this additional filtration during
x-ray equipment corrective maintenance.
Voltage meters, when used in procedures to control the quality
of x-ray emitting equipment, must correctly and unambiguously
operate under distinct filtration conditions. Ambiguities occur
when measurements obtained for high voltages and low filtration
rates are similar to those obtained for lower voltages and high
filtration rates.
CDTN has recently developed a multipurpose instrument cap-
able of non-invasively measuring the air kerma, the half-value
layer and the voltage of radiation emitting equipment. In order to
validate the voltage estimates, the above-mentioned instrument
was compared to the UNFORS model Xi R/F and the Radcal model
4075 R/F meters, for different voltage and filtration conditions.
Here we report that although all instruments show a similar
tendency to increase the kVp estimate when aluminum filters are
placed in the path of the x-ray beam, they may all be satisfactorily
adopted in quality control routines of x-ray equipment by means
of estimation of the applied voltage.
2. Materials and methods
Tests were carried out using a Pantak Seifert model 320 HS
x-ray machine and the same setup was adopted for all instruments
under comparison. This device's inherent filtration was estimated
to be 0.18 mmAl by means of the extrapolation method described
in ISO 4037-1. Each meter was carefully positioned at the x-ray
beam center and 100 cm distant from focal spot. We have placed
aluminum filters and two lead collimators at the radiation beam
output in order to reduce the scattered radiation and the beam
cross section. The current applied to the x-ray tube has been kept
at 20 mA throughout the irradiation process of all meters.
2.1. The Unfors model Xi R/F
The Unfors Xi consists of a base unit and several different ex-
ternal detectors for Radioscopy/Fluoroscopy (R/F), mammography
(MAN), Computer Tomography (CT) and others. Communication
between detector and base unit is purely digital, thereby mini-
mizing sensitivity to mechanical or electrical stress. The R/F de-
tector has two sensors: R/F High is designed for conventional, high
dose rate measurements; R/F Low is designed for low dose rate
measurements. In this work, during measurements, we used the
Unfors model Xi R/F Low sensor.
2.2. The Radcal Corporation model 4075 R/F
The Radcal Corporation 4075 R/F consists of a base unit with
two internal detectors placed under different filtrations. The ratio
between these two internal detectors signals is used to determine
the peak voltage and, according to the manufacturer guide, it is
independent of the tube current or the instrument focal spot-
distance (df-i). The detectors are centrally positioned and are able
to measure voltages in the 55–145 range.
61
2.3. The CDTN multipurpose instrument
The new multipurpose instrument developed in the CDTN's
Calibration Laboratory consists of a PVC square base plate where a
depression holds a radiochromic film that detects the incoming
radiation. One lead and one acrylic plate are used to shield against
unwanted scattered radiation. Sixty-five hollows enable the use of
filters of different materials and thickness, necessary to estimate
air kerma, peak voltage and half-value layer. Details of the in-
strument and its operation have been presented by Baptista Neto
and Faria (2014).
Precautions in handling radiochromic films, outlined by Butson
et al. (2003), were observed. Additionally, in order to reach che-
mical stability, film samples remained undisturbed for 24 h before
the beginning of the readout process. Exposure to light was
minimized by handling films in opaque envelopes both before and
after irradiation and scanning (Butson et al., 2002).
The characteristics of the Gafchromics XR-QA2 radiochromic
film for kV image dose measurement have been investigated by
Giaddui et al. (2012). For the range of energy selected by the au-
thors, the dependence on energy remained below 10%. Al-Okshi
et al. (2013) found virtually coincident dose–response curves
when testing the Gafchromics XR-QA2 film for 60 kV, 80 kV and
120 kV beams, which suggests weak dependence on energy within
the selected energy range.
Films were scanned using the ScanJet 4C Hewlett Packard
scanner at 600 dpi resolution, in color image mode. Files were
saved as Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) and analysis of color
intensity was performed with the ImageJ application program.
Statistical tools that allow reduction in the measurements stan-
dard deviation were used in the radiochromic films analysis, as
suggested by Baptista Neto et al. (2014).
3. Results and discussion
When an x-ray beam crosses an attenuating medium, the re-
lationship between input and output radiation doses varies ac-
cording to the radiation energy emerging from the tube. Thus, one
of the basic principles adopted to non-invasively relate the applied
voltage to the x-ray emission equipment is to force the beam to
cross a metal sheet with enough thickness, in order to shield most
of the low energy photons. The mean energy of the remaining
photons is then tightly correlated to the voltage applied to the
electrodes and may be deduced from the relationship between the
beam intensities obtained when the beam crosses two filters of
different thicknesses (Joseph and Wilson, 1982; Aichinger and
Kranberg, 1983; Ranallo et al., 1990b). In this context, we compare
the peak-voltage results by means of a substitution method with
three distinct non-invasive devices: a voltage meter manufactured
by Radcal Corporation, model 4075 R/F, a multipurpose electronic
instrument manufactured by Unfors model Xi and a multipurpose
instrument assembled at the CDTN Calibration Laboratory. It is
important to observe that the use of this method presupposes that
small fluctuations could not be perceived, since the waveform is
not monitored.
3.1. Unfors model Xi R/F
All measurements were made using the R/F low detector due to
the low current levels prevailing during x-ray exposure. Table 1
shows Unfors model Xi R/F's response to different x-ray condi-
tions. Additional filtration varied from 0 to 5 mmAl and nominal
voltage was investigated from 40 to 100 kVp, as shown in Table 1.
For 90 and 100 nominal kVp values and no additional filtration,
the instrument exhibited the “HiFilt” message.
62 A.T. Baptista Neto et al. / Applied Radiation and Isotopes 100 (2015) 60–64

Table 1
kVp values for Unfors model Xi R/F in different x-ray conditions.

Vnom (kVp) Additional filtration

0 mmAl 1 mmAl 2 mmAl 3 mmAl 4 mmAl 5 mmAl

Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa

40 40.79 0.11 40.89 0.26 40.86 0.20 40.87 0.23 41.83 0.24 42.30 0.30
50 50.73 0.04 51.00 0.26 51.32 0.06 51.35 0.08 51.69 0.10 51.68 0.13
60 60.99 0.07 61.42 0.06 61.86 0.13 61.93 0.21 61.91 0.09 62.11 0.27
70 71.26 0.07 71.68 0.20 72.05 0.06 72.31 0.12 72.50 0.02 72.53 0.11
80 81.85 0.18 82.14 0.18 82.85 0.14 82.87 0.09 83.20 0.15 83.39 0.06
90 – – 92.48 0.36 93.02 0.07 93.00 0.36 93.18 0.29 93.18 0.18
100 – – 102.8 0.25 102.9 0.06 103.2 0.25 103.1 0.25 103.2 0.35

a
SD – standard deviation.

Fig. 1 shows kVp variations when aluminum filters are added to
the path of the x-ray beam. It may be observed that in Table 1, as
well as in Fig. 1, when aluminum filters are added, the instrument
tends to return slightly increased kVp evaluations. This is an in-
dication that it is important to use the equipment in conditions
similar to those established in the instrument's calibration certi-
ficate. If it is not possible, corrections related to the total filtration
of the x-ray emitting equipment must be made.
3.2. Radcal Corporation model 4075 R/F
Similar results were obtained for the Radcal Corporation model
4075 R/F. As seen in both Table 2 and Fig. 2, when aluminum filters
are placed in the path of the x-ray beam, the same tendency of
increasing kVp estimates was observed. The instrument did not
respond to voltages below 80 kVp and high filtration due to the
low radiation rate.
Results signalize the importance of using the equipment in si-
milar conditions to those established by the manufacturer and in
compliance with the instrument's calibration certificate.
3.3. The multipurpose instrument of CDTN Calibration Laboratory
In Fig. 3 we present the resulting calibration curve for our
multipurpose instrument, for nominal voltages ranging from 50 to
100 kVp. It is based on the ratio between the optical densities
measured under two distinct filters. In this setup we have used the
reference beams RQR-3, RQR-4, RQR-5, RQR-6, RQR-7 and RQR-8
which in turn simulates the same conditions used in conventional
diagnostic radiology (IEC, 2005).
Errors above 30% have occurred for additional filtration below
2 mmAl, suggesting that low-energy photons in these beams over
influenced the results. Similarly to other meters, a tendency to
increase the voltage estimate when aluminum filters are place in
the path of the x-ray beam was observed, as shown in Table 3 and
Fig. 4. Results signalize the importance of using the equipment in
similar conditions to those established by the manufacturer and in
compliance with the instrument's calibration certificate.
3.4. Comparison between different equipments
For comparison purposes, Table 4 shows estimated voltage values

Fig. 1. kVp values as function of aluminum additional filtration. Upon addition of aluminum filtration, the Unfors Xi's response tends to slightly increase for all nominal
voltages selected.
 A.T. Baptista Neto et al. / Applied Radiation and Isotopes 100 (2015) 60–64 63

Table 2
kVp values using Radcal 4075 R/F in different x-ray conditions.

Vnom (kVp) Additional filtration

0 mmAl 1 mmAl 2 mmAl 3 mmAl 4 mmAl 5 mmAl

Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa

80 79.93 0.15 80.63 0.35 81.57 0.61 82.17 0.32 82.70 0.60 83.43 0.06
90 89.67 0.50 91.00 0.26 92.13 0.15 93.00 0.26 93.97 0.25 95.40 1.05
100 98.30 0.70 100.1 0.44 102.8 0.25 103.7 0.50 105.4 0.29 106.5 0.66

a
SD – standard deviation.

Table 3
kVp values using CDTN multipurpose instrument for different x-ray conditions.

Vnom (kVp) Additional filtration

2 mmAl 3 mmAl 4 mmAl 5 mmAl

Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa Mean SDa

50 – – 50.4 2.0 51.7 2.0 54.8 2.0
60 58.0 2.3 62.2 2.3 62.6 2.3 63.9 2.3
70 67.8 2.6 71.2 2.6 69.7 2.6 75.8 2.6
80 78.8 3.0 82.9 3.0 83.5 3.0 86.1 3.0
90 87.2 3.2 92.8 3.2 93.4 3.2 94.1 3.2

a
SD – standard deviation.

Fig. 2. kVp values as a function of aluminum additional filtration. Upon addition of

aluminum filtration, the Radcal Corporation 4075 R/F's response tends to slightly
increase for all nominal voltages selected.

Fig. 4. kVp values as function of aluminum additional filtration. Upon addition of

aluminum filtration, the CDTN multipurpose instrument response tends to increase
for all nominal voltages selected.

Table 4
Voltage estimative for 3 mmAl additional filtration using Unfors Xi and CDTN
Fig. 3. Calibration curve for the CDTN multipurpose instrument. multipurpose instrument.

Vnom Unfors Xi CDTN Difference (%)

obtained for both the Unfors Xi R/F and the CDTN multipurpose in- 40 40.87 – –
strument using 3 mmAl additional filtration. This condition has been 50 51.35 50.4 1.86
60 61.93 62.2 0.43
selected because an equivalent filtration to at least 2.5 mmAl is re-
70 72.31 71.2 1.54
quired by guidelines, being oftentimes incorporated as standard ac- 80 82.87 82.9 0.03
cessory in medical x-ray tubes. Comparing voltage values we observe 90 93.00 92.8 0.21
100 103.2 – –
a maximum discrepancy below 2%.
64 A.T. Baptista Neto et al. / Applied Radiation and Isotopes 100 (2015) 60–64
4. Conclusions
This work compares results obtained using 3 (three) different
instruments capable of non-invasively estimating the voltage ap-
plied to the electrodes of an x-ray emission equipment, namely the
Unfors model Xi R/F, the Radcal Corporation model 4075 R/F and a
new CDTN multipurpose instrument. Although all instruments
show a similar tendency to increase the kVp estimate when alu-
minum filters are placed in the path of the x-ray beam, they may
all be satisfactorily adopted in quality control routines of x-ray
equipment by means of estimation of the applied voltage. The
importance of using equally calibrated measurement instruments
and according to manufacturer's instructions became clear; if it is
not the case, measurement-correcting methods must be applied.
Using the new CDTN multipurpose instrument, the kVp estimate is
satisfactory for highly filtered radiation beam.
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