OnLine Design Software for Shielded Radiation Facilities

描述(由申请人提供)： 我们整个社会都在使用放射源。根据法律，每个辐射源都必须得到适当的屏蔽。目前，屏蔽设施或组件的设计是通过大量费力的手工计算和简单的分析工具进行的，这些分析工具利用了广泛的简化假设。这项申请建议开发一种简单、易用的软件包，用于屏蔽设施设计和有效剂量测定。这样的包将允许用户评估一系列不同的屏蔽方案，其中材料和/或布局被反复改变。用现有的手工计算方法，这种能力费时乏味得令人望而却步。拟议的软件包将作为瘦客户端驻留在用户桌面上，并将包括一个易于使用的界面，用户可在其中输入有关设施、放射源和人员位置的所有细节。这些输入将通过互联网发送到BioMed Software Inc.服务器，该软件将在那里解释所有条目并汇编适当的输入文件，以便与MCNP蒙特卡罗代码一起运行。使用MCNP代码作为模拟引擎，允许对现实场景进行全3D建模，包括许多辐射类型、次级粒子的创建和完全考虑所有相互作用过程，这是现有方法不可能实现的。此外，用户将能够计算有效剂量当量，这也不可能使用提供暴露估计的手工计算方法。所有模拟都将在安全的服务器上执行，从而释放用户的计算机以执行其他任务，并限制对MCNP代码的未经授权的访问。技术挑战包括创建完全交互的3D用户界面、基于简单用户输入自动形成复杂的MCNP输入文件、处理多个同时使用的用户、维护服务器完整性以及减少密集的模拟计算时间。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Radiation sources are used throughout our society. By law, each radiation source must be properly shielded. Presently, design of shielded facilities or assemblies is performed via extensive and laborious hand calculations and with simple analytical tools that make use of broad simplifying assumptions. This application proposes the development of a simple, easy-to-use software package for shielded facility design and effective dose determination. Such a package will allow the user to evaluate a range of different shielding scenarios in which materials and/or layout are iteratively altered. This capability is prohibitively laborious and tedious with existing hand calculation approaches. The proposed software package will reside as a thin client on the user's desktop and will consist of an easy-to-use interface into which all details regarding the facility, radiation source, and personnel locations are entered by the user. These inputs will be sent via the Internet to the BioMed Software Inc. server where the software will interpret all entries and assemble an appropriate input file to be run with the MCNP Monte Carlo code. Use of the MCNP code as the simulation engine allows full 3D modeling of the realistic scenario, including many radiation types, creation of secondary particles and full accounting for all interaction process, something not possible with existing approaches. In addition, users will be able to calculate effective dose equivalent, also not possible with the hand calculation approach which provides estimates of exposure. All simulations will be performed on a secure server, freeing the user's computer for other tasks and limiting unauthorized access to the MCNP code. Technical challenges include creating a fully interactive 3D user interface, automating formation of a complex MCNP input file based on simple user inputs, handling multiple simultaneous users, maintaining server integrity, and reduction of intensive simulation computation time.