Shielding design of a treatment room for an accelerator-based epithermal neutron irradiation facility for BNCT.

Abstract

Protecting the facility personnel and the general public from radiation exposure is a primary safety concern of an accelerator-based epithermal neutron irradiation facility. This work makes an attempt at answering the questions "How much?" and "What kind?" of shielding will meet the occupational limits of such a facility. Shielding effectiveness is compared for ordinary and barytes concretes in combination with and without borated polyethylene. A calculational model was developed of a treatment room , patient "scatterer," and the epithermal neutron beam. The Monte Carlo code, MCNP, was used to compute the total effective dose equivalent rates at specific points of interest outside of the treatment room. A conservative occupational effective dose rate limit of 0.01 mSv h-1 was the guideline for this study. Conservative Monte Carlo calculations show that constructing the treatment room walls with 1.5 m of ordinary concrete, 1.2 m of barytes concrete, 1.0 m of ordinary concrete preceded by 10 cm of 5% boron-polyethylene, or 0.8 m of barytes concrete preceded by 10 cm of 5% boron-polyethylene will adequately protect facility personnel.