Jordan University of Science and Technology
A new method for measuring tracks density in CR-39 detectors by compensating for overlapping tracks
Authors:
I.A. Aljarrah, O.D. Al-Khaleel, H.M. Al-Khateeb, K.M. Aljarrah, F.Y. Alzoubi
Abstract:
CR-39 nuclear track detectors have been used as an efficient radon monitoring system. Exposing these
detectors to radon would result in tracks where ever particles hit the surface of the detector. Natural
radioactivity of alpha particles (radon concentration) is measured based on the count of these tracks on
CR-39 detector. Counting these tracks by eye is not an easy task especially when the density of the tracks
is high. Automated tracks counting systems are attractive solution for this problem. However, as the
density of tracks increases the accuracy of these methods deteriorates. This is due to the fact that
overlapped tracks are counted as one track during the segmentation process resulting in an underestimation
of the real count of the tracks. This work proposes a new image processing based automated
approach for tracks counting. This new automated approach solves the problem of counting overlapping
tracks by approximating their number and then adjusting the final count of tracks by compensating for
those uncounted tracks. The experimental results show that the proposed approach reduces the counting
percentage error from 5.64% to 2.54% by solving the counting problem of the overlapped tracks.