Dose estimation for astronauts using dose conversion coefficients calculated with the PHITS code and the ICRP/ICRU adult reference computational phantoms
Journal article, 2011

Absorbed-dose and dose-equivalent rates for astronauts were estimated by multiplying fluence-to-dose conversion coefficients in the units of Gy.cm(2) and Sv.cm(2), respectively, and cosmic-ray fluxes around spacecrafts in the unit of cm(-2) s(-1). The dose conversion coefficients employed in the calculation were evaluated using the general-purpose particle and heavy ion transport code system PHITS coupled to the male and female adult reference computational phantoms, which were released as a common ICRP/ICRU publication. The cosmic-ray fluxes inside and near to spacecrafts were also calculated by PHITS, using simplified geometries. The accuracy of the obtained absorbed-dose and dose-equivalent rates was verified by various experimental data measured both inside and outside spacecrafts. The calculations quantitatively show that the effective doses for astronauts are significantly greater than their corresponding effective dose equivalents, because of the numerical incompatibility between the radiation quality factors and the radiation weighting factors. These results demonstrate the usefulness of dose conversion coefficients in space dosimetry.

simulations

neutron-spectra

space radiation

atmosphere

benchmarking

particle

model

mission

fluka

Author

T. Sato

Japan Atomic Energy Agency

A. Endo

Japan Atomic Energy Agency

Lembit Sihver

Chalmers, Applied Physics, Nuclear Engineering

K. Niita

Research Organization for Information Science and Technology

Radiation and Environmental Biophysics

0301-634X (ISSN) 1432-2099 (eISSN)

Vol. 50 1 115-123

Subject Categories

Physical Sciences

DOI

10.1007/s00411-010-0330-0

More information

Created

10/6/2017