[en] In this paper we analyze the response of three commercial equipment designed to detect illicit trafficking or inadvertent movement of radioactive materials at airports when carried by passengers. We compared three fix-installed instruments: APM (Bicron), GR-606 (Exploranium), and FHT-1372 (Thermo Eberline). In this initial evaluation conducted at the Laboratory of Nuclear engineering of the School of Civil Engineering, it was observed that the FHT-1372 introduced a fester detection response, sensitive and allowed the measurement of total dose rate and artificial dose rate. This equipment was installed at the exit from customs passenger of Barajas international airport operating for a period of 108 days in 2002 with a total number of 1,339,931 people. this period was divided into 5 sessions to establish suitable investigation levels to detect a possible incident of radioactive material, which was finally set at 110 nSv/h to total dose rate and 25 nSv/h for artificial dose rate. During this period 39 possible incidents were detected above the investigation level established, 5 of them with a value 10 times the environmental background of the room where the equipment was installed (about 90 nSv/h), and no level exceeded 100 μSv/h at 1 m distance, which is the limit for legal transport of radioactive materials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). (Author) 17 refs.

[en] In order to assure that the radiation portal monitors (RPM), which are installed in companies adheres to the Protocol for the monitoring of radioactive content of the metallic materials (hereafter Protocol), work correctly and that they have the appropriate detection characteristics, the procedures recommended are the following: 1) elaboration of a report of the initial installation of the equipment, 2) periodic verifications that assure the correct equipment operation and, 3) static and dynamic annual calibrations using a cesium-137 source. The criteria for selecting these procedures are based on standard related to the portals in the frontiers of ANSI-N 42-35, IC-62244 and the guide for IAEA, TS-1-1240. These procedures are similar to those established in a quality management system. They have simple and clear definitions, in addition to rapid and economic execution. the tests defined in these procedures allow to obtain the quantitative physical parameters of the standard ISO-11929 using static and dynamic measurements. (Author)17 refs.