• Current Optics and Photonics
• /
• v.1 no.5
• /
• pp.551-555
• /
• 2017

Tissue optics is a well-established and extensively studied area. In the last decades, Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) has been one of the standard tools for simulation of light propagation in turbid media. The utilization of parallel processing exhibits dramatic increase in the speed of MCS's of photon migration. Some calculations based on MCS can be completed within a few seconds. Since the MCS's have the potential to become a real time calculation method, a dynamic accuracy estimation, which is also known as history by history statistical estimators, is required in the simulation code to automatically terminate the MCS as the results' accuracy achieves a high enough level. In this work, spatial and time-domain GPU-based MCS, adopting the dynamic accuracy estimation, are performed to calculate the light dose/reflectance in homogeneous and heterogeneous tissue media. This dynamic accuracy estimation can effectively derive the statistical error of optical dose/reflectance during the parallel Monte Carlo process.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.9
• /
• pp.2830-2838
• /
• 2021

This work deals with the assessment of the burnup capabilities of the Serpent Monte Carlo code to predict spent nuclear fuel (SNF) isotopic concentrations for low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel at different burnup levels up to 47 MWd/kgU. The irradiation of six UO₂ experimental samples in three different VVER-1000 reactor units has been simulated and the predicted concentrations of actinides up to ²⁴⁴Cm have been compared with the corresponding measured values. The results show a global good agreement between calculated and experimental concentrations, in several cases within the margins of the nuclear data uncertainties and in a few cases even within the reported experimental uncertainties. The differences in the performances of the JEFF3.1.1, ENDF/B-VII.1 and ENDF/B-VIII.0 nuclear data libraries (NDLs) have also been assessed and the use of the newly released ENDF/B-VIII.0 library has shown an increased accuracy in the prediction of the C/E's for some of the actinides considered, particularly for the plutonium isotopes. This work represents a step forward towards the validation of advanced simulation tools against post irradiation experimental data and the obtained results provide an evidence of the capabilities of the Serpent Monte-Carlo code with the associated modern NDLs to accurately compute SNF nuclide inventory concentrations for VVER-1000 type reactors.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.225-232
• /
• 1998

Results of Monte Carlo simulations on amorphous silicon based x-ray imaging arrays are described. In order to investigate the characteristics of amorphous silicon x-ray imaging devices and to provide the optimum design parameter, Monte Carlo simulations were performed. Monte Carlo simulation codes for our purpose were developed and various combinations of x-ray peak voltages, aluminum filter thicknesses, CsI(TI) thicknesses, and amorphous silicon photodiode pixel sizes were tested in connection with detection efficiency and spatial resolution of the amorphous silicon based x-ray imager. With usual Csl(TI) thickness of 300${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$-500${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$, detection efficiency was in the range of 70%-95% and energy absorption efficiency was in the range of 40%-70% for 60kVp-120kVp x-ray. From the simulations it was found that amorphous silicon pixel size and Csl(TI) thickness were the most important parameters which determine the resolution of the imager. By use of our simulation results we could provide proper combinations of Csl(TI) thicknesses and pixels sizes for optimum sensitivity and resolution.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.2
• /
• pp.430-438
• /
• 2021

The spatial distribution of neutron flux or reaction rate was calculated by cell or mesh tally in traditional Monte Carlo simulation. However, either cell or mesh tally leads to the increase of memory consumption and simulation time. In this paper, the function expansion tally (FET) method was developed in Reactor Monte Carlo code RMC to solve this problem. The FET method was applied to the tallies of neutron flux distributions of uranium block and PWR fuel rod models. Legendre polynomials were used in the axial direction, while Zernike polynomials were used in the radial direction. The results of flux, calculation time and memory consumption of different expansion orders were investigated, and compared with the mesh tally. Results showed that the continuous distribution of flux can be obtained by FET method. The flux distributions were consistent with that of mesh tally, while the memory consumption and simulation time can be effectively reduced. Finally, the convergence analysis of coefficients of polynomials were performed, and the selection strategy of FET order was proposed based on the statistics uncertainty of the coefficients. The proposed method can help to determine the order of FET, which was meaningful for the efficiency and accuracy of FET method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.52 no.12
• /
• pp.2852-2859
• /
• 2020

This paper deals with the simulation-based design optimization and experimental validation of the characteristics of an in-core silver Self-Powered Neutron Detector (SPND). Optimized dimensions of the SPND are determined by combining Monte Carlo simulations and analytical methods. As a first step, the Monte Carlo transport code MCNPX is used to follow the trajectory and fate of the neutrons emitted from an external source. This simulation is able to seamlessly integrate various phenomena, including neutron slowing-down and shielding effects. Then, the expected number of beta particles and their energy spectrum following a neutron capture reaction in the silver emitter are fetched from the TENDEL database using the JANIS software interface and integrated with the data from the first step to yield the origin and spectrum of the source electrons. Eventually, the MCNPX transport code is used for the Monte Carlo calculation of the ballistic current of beta particles in the various regions of the SPND. Then, the output current and the maximum insulator thickness to avoid breakdown are determined. The optimum design of the SPND is then manufactured and experimental tests are conducted. The calculated design parameters of this detector have been found in good agreement with the obtained experimental results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.3
• /
• pp.790-802
• /
• 2022

Large-scale reactor simulation often requires the use of Monte Carlo calculation techniques to estimate important reactor parameters. One drawback of these Monte Carlo calculation techniques is they inevitably result in some uncertainty in calculated quantities. The present study includes parametric uncertainty quantification (UQ) and sensitivity analysis (SA) on the Advanced Test Reactor Critical (ATRC) facility housed at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and addresses some complications due to Monte Carlo uncertainty when performing these analyses. This approach for UQ/SA includes consideration of Monte Carlo code uncertainty in computed sensitivities, consideration of uncertainty from directly measured parameters and a comparison of results obtained from brute-force Monte Carlo UQ versus UQ obtained from a surrogate model. These methodologies are applied to the uncertainty and sensitivity of k_eff for two sets of uncertain parameters involving fuel plate geometry and fuel plate composition. Results indicate that the less computationally-expensive method for uncertainty quantification involving a linear surrogate model provides accurate estimations for k_eff uncertainty and the Monte Carlo uncertainty in calculated k_eff values can have a large effect on computed linear model parameters for parameters with low influence on k_eff.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2002.09a
• /
• pp.282-284
• /
• 2002

We have developed and used BISS as a radiation detector to verify patient dose and determine the physical characteristics of beams used in Stereotatic Radio Surgery(SRS) and Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy(IMRT). In order to confirm the function and accuracy of our BISS, we simulate our measurements by BISS under the radiation of 6MV photons from a Varian Clinac 21EX equipped with a 60 leaf pairs MLC. For the simulation based on the Monte Carlo algorithm, which remains the most comprehensive and accurate theoretical method to verify beam profiles, we use the BEAM code. Compared with the measurements by BISS, our simulation of variously shaped phantom measurements show good agreements. Our simulation results can be used as a theoretical standard to compare and confirm measurements by BISS and other dosimeters such as ultramicro cylindrical ionization chamber(UCIC) and radiographic film.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2002.09a
• /
• pp.116-118
• /
• 2002

It has been noted that Monte Carlo simulations are the most accurate method to calculate dose distributions in any material and geometry. Monte Carlo transport algorithms determine the absorbed dose by following the path of representative particles as they travel through the medium. Accurate Monte Carlo dose calculations rely on detailed modeling of the radiation source. We modeled the effects of beam modifiers such as collimators, blocks, wedges, etc. of our accelerator, Varian Clinac 600C/D to ensure accurate representation of the radiation source using the EGSnrc based BEAM code. These were used in the EGSnrc based DOSXYZ code for the simulation of particles transport through a voxel based Cartesian coordinate system. Because Monte Carlo methods use particle-by-particle methods to simulate a radiation transport, more particle histories yield the better representation of the actual dose. But the prohibitively long time required to get high resolution and accuracy calculations has prevented the use of Monte Carlo methods in the actual clinical spots. Our ultimate aim is to develop a Monte Carlo dose calculation system designed specifically for radiation therapy planning, which is distinguished from current dose calculation methods. The purpose of this study in the present phase was to get dose calculation results corresponding to measurements within practical time limit. We used parallel processing and some variance reduction techniques, therefore reduced the computational time, preserving a good agreement between calculations of depth dose distributions and measurements within 5% deviations.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
• /
• 2002.09a
• /
• pp.485-488
• /
• 2002

In order to understand and quantitatively analyze the physical phenomena and behavior of each component of mammography system during the breast imaging, we simulated mammography imaging using Monte Carlo simulation codes. MCNP4B code was used for our simulation purpose, and we investigated the effect of target material, anode angle, filtration, peak voltage and exposure on the image quality of mammograms. From the simulation results we expect that optimized operation condition of mammography system can be found.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.52 no.5
• /
• pp.878-888
• /
• 2020

This paper presents the validation of UNIST in-house Monte Carlo code MCS used for the high-fidelity simulation of commercial pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Its focus is on the accurate, spatially detailed neutronic analyses of startup physics tests for the initial core of the Watts Bar Nuclear 1 reactor, which is a vital step in evaluating core phenomena in an operating nuclear power reactor. The MCS solutions for the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL) Virtual Environment for Reactor Applications (VERA) core physics benchmark progression problems 1 to 5 were verified with KENO-VI and Serpent 2 solutions for geometries ranging from a single-pin cell to a full core. MCS was also validated by comparing with results of reactor zero-power physics tests in a full-core simulation. MCS exhibits an excellent consistency against the measured data with a bias of ±3 pcm at the initial criticality whole-core problem. Furthermore, MCS solutions for rod worth are consistent with measured data, and reasonable agreement is obtained for the isothermal temperature coefficient and soluble boron worth. This favorable comparison with measured parameters exhibited by MCS continues to broaden its validation basis. These results provide confidence in MCS's capability in high-fidelity calculations for practical PWR cores.