ACORDE: A new application for estimating the dose absorbed by passengers and crews in commercial flights

Appl Radiat Isot. 2023 Jun:196:110752. doi: 10.1016/j.apradiso.2023.110752. Epub 2023 Mar 2.

Abstract

Atmospheric radiation produced during the interaction of cosmic rays with the atmosphere could be considerably high at typical flight altitudes and constitutes a risk factor for people and avionics onboard the plane. In this work, we present ACORDE, a Monte Carlo-based method to estimate the dose during a commercial flight by using state-of-the-art simulation codes and considering the course travelled, the real-time atmospheric and geomagnetic conditions, and a model of the plane and an anthropomorphic phantom to obtain the effective dose on a flight-by-flight basis.

Keywords: Commercial flights; Cosmic rays; Onboard dose calculation.