Nuclear Physics Issues in Space Radiation Risk Assessment-The FLUKA Monte Carlo Transport Code Used for Space Radiation Measurement and Protection
- University of Houston, Houston, TX (United States)
The long term human exploration goals that NASA has embraced, requires the need to understand the primary radiation and secondary particle production under a variety of environmental conditions. In order to perform accurate transport simulations for the incident particles found in the space environment, accurate nucleus-nucleus inelastic event generators are needed, and NASA is funding their development. For the first time, NASA is including the radiation problem into the . design of the next manned exploration vehicle. The NASA-funded FLUER-S (FLUKA Executing Under ROOT-Space) project has several goals beyond the improvement of the internal nuclear physics simulations. These include making FLUKA more user-friendly. Several tools have been developed to simplify the use of FLUKA without compromising its accuracy or versatility. Among these tools are a general source input, ability of distributive computing, simplification of geometry input, geometry and event visualization, and standard FLUKA scoring output analysis using a ROOT GUI. In addition to describing these tools we will show how they have been used for space radiation environment data analysis in MARIE, IVCPDS, and EVCPDS. Similar analyses can be performed for future radiation measurement detectors before they are deployed in order to optimize their design. These tools can also be used in the design of nuclear-based power systems on manned exploration vehicles and planetary surfaces. In addition to these space applications, the simulations are being used to support accelerator based experiments like the cross-section measurements being performed at HIMAC and NSRL at BNL.
- OSTI ID:
- 21054820
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 884, Issue 1; Conference: 6. Latin American symposium on nuclear physics and applications, Iguazu (Argentina), 3-7 Oct 2005; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.2710585; (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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