Radiation shielding analysis of a special linear accelerator for electron beam and X-ray

J Xray Sci Technol. 2017;25(3):505-514. doi: 10.3233/XST-16196.

Abstract

The King AbdulAziz City for Science & Technology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia plans to build a 10 MeV, 15 kW linear accelerator (LINAC) for electron beam and X-ray. The accelerator will be supplied by EB Tech, Republic of Korea, and the design and construction of the accelerator building will be conducted in the cooperation with EB Tech. This report presents the shielding analysis of the accelerator building using the Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code (MCNP). In order to improve the accuracy in estimating deep radiation penetration and to reduce computation time, various variance reduction techniques, including the weight window (WW) method, the deterministic transport (DXTRAN) spheres were considered. Radiation levels were estimated at selected locations in the shielding facility running MCNP6 for particle histories up to 1.0×10+8. The final results indicated that the calculated doses at all selected detector locations met the dose requirement of 50 mSv/yr, which is the United State Nuclear Regulatory Commission (U.S. NRC) requirement.

Keywords: MCNP; Monte Carlo transport; electron linear accelerator; occupational dose limit; radiation shielding; variance reduction.

MeSH terms

  • Electrons
  • Equipment Design
  • Monte Carlo Method
  • Particle Accelerators*
  • Radiation Protection* / instrumentation
  • Radiation Protection* / methods
  • X-Rays