Fragmentation calculations for energetic ions in candidate space radiation shielding materials

L. K. Mansur, Y. M. Charara, S. B. Guetersloh, I. Remec, L. W. Townsend

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Calculations have been carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of a range of carbon- and hydrogen-rich materials for shielding against energetic heavy ions relevant to the galactic cosmic ray spectrum. Experimental work integrated with the calculations included both preparation and characterization of physical properties of candidate materials and measurements of fragmentation (breakup) of ion beams of16 0 and 40Ar in the tens of GeV energy range in these materials. We have simulated the fragmentation experiments using both the HETC-HEDS and PHITS high-energy particle transport codes. The purposes of these computational simulations were to investigate the effectiveness as spacecraft personnel shielding of various novel as well as commercially available materials for future lunar and interplanetary missions and to validate the codes against experimental data. In the present contribution we report results of the fragmentation simulations and compare them with examples of the experimental measurements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)263-272
Number of pages10
JournalNuclear Technology
Volume166
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2009

Keywords

  • Galactic cosmic rays
  • Polymers
  • Shielding

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