Abstract
The purpose of this work is to develop a radioisotope power source dose estimation tool (RPS-DET) capable of rapidly predicting accurate neutron and gamma-ray flux/dose implications from various radioisotope power sources (RPSs). RPS-DET can use this information to calculate the flux/dose incident on or absorbed by nearby humans, materials, and electronics over a complex mission lifetime. This simulation tool uses a Matlab user interface to combine common geometry scenarios for traditional and new RPS design configurations to write a particle-transport simulation using Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) 6, which provides results that are automatically post-processed for interactive analysis. The user defines the average age of the PuO2 fuel, which determines the appropriate time-dependent gamma-ray and neutron spectra, along with the desired RPS and local environment for the simulation. Results for a given simulation are gamma-ray, neutron, and combined flux spectra, whole-body effective dose for humans, and absorbed dose in silicon for electronics. This work has been benchmarked against measurements of existing RPS units and has been determined to predict neutron and gamma flux, absorbed dose, and dose equivalent within 50% of simulation uncertainties.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference, AERO 2018 |
| Publisher | IEEE Computer Society |
| Pages | 1-19 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781538620144 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 25 2018 |
| Event | 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference, AERO 2018 - Big Sky, United States Duration: Mar 3 2018 → Mar 10 2018 |
Publication series
| Name | IEEE Aerospace Conference Proceedings |
|---|---|
| Volume | 2018-March |
| ISSN (Print) | 1095-323X |
Conference
| Conference | 2018 IEEE Aerospace Conference, AERO 2018 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | United States |
| City | Big Sky |
| Period | 03/3/18 → 03/10/18 |
Funding
This work was funded by the NASA RPS Program Office, and much appreciation is given to them and Glenn Research Center for their guidance and support, specifically June Zakrajsek and Paul Schmitz. Field measurements, fueling details, and detailed information regarding MMRTG and GPHS-RTG were provided by Dr. Steve Johnson and Kelley Lively at INL. Information regarding the materials and dimensions of MMRTG were provided by Bill Otting of Aerojet Rocketdyne. This work was initiated while the author was attending the University of Tennessee, and many technical contributions were made by Dr. Lawrence Heilbronn from the Nuclear Engineering Department. Special thanks to Dr. Lou Qualls at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for his mentorship and instruction during this project. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).