Monte Carlo Irradiation Model For Long-Term Low Dose Environments for Space Life Science Applications

Abstract

This research looks at the intersection of computational methods in radiation transport and biological experimentation. An essentially zero-cost metric (with the exception of relatively low time cost) or estimate for an experimental procedure for irradiation planning can help optimize the dose, shielding, and geometrical considerations. The motivation of this research is to provide a comprehensive Monte Carlo model for use in a long-term, continuous low-dose irradiation experiment on hind-limb unloaded rodents. This model presents data on experiment-exact source models and exact room geometries to meet the strict dose, cost, and shielding requirements. The method for answering these metrics will be through statistical or Monte Carlo radiation transport with the overarching goal of this project being not only to offer data to compare with physical radiation experiments, but also to determine if this type of method holds promise in long-term, low-dose experiments for radio-biological studies.

The determined optimum geometry was the star geometry with sand collimators and lead shielding on the wall hot-spots. This met dose requirements inside and outside the room while fitting into the budget of the experiment.