Monte Carlo Investigation Into the Shielding for Ionizing Radiation (Electrons and Bremsstralung) at an Orbital Space Module

• Grant number: 14/17734-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: February 01, 2015
• End date: January 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Nuclear Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Abel Antônio da Silva
• Grantee: Cassia Félix da Silva Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos Avançados (IEAv). Departamento de Ciência e Tecnologia Aeroespacial (DCTA). Ministério da Defesa (Brasil). São José dos Campos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The corpuscular radiation from the Sun is mainly composed of electrons (E < 10 MeV) and protons (E > 10 MeV), which can become trapped in the Earth magnetosphere. In that region, one can also find heavy ions from the galactic cosmic radiation. Electrons predominate in places like the geostationary orbit around the Earth. In the development of a space module boarding digital electronic instruments (silicon) and infrastructure for keeping the human life (tissue), the absorbed dose in both silicon and tissue must be determined. The technology of developing shielding for electrons and the Bremsstrahlung radiation yielded in the stopping of electrons is already well known by the aerospace industry using aluminum alloys. However, to shield against protons and heavy ions - and neutrons yielded in the shielding as secondary radiation - one had better using hydrogen-rich materials. In this case, the aerospace industry has worked on the development of shielding materials based on aluminum alloys together with polyethylene and even water. The advantage of using water is that it is an essential and familiar substance to human life. It can be recycled and purified through the supercritical oxidation (or burn) process. In this project for master degree, it is proposed an investigation into the concept aluminum + water as shielding for electrons and Bremsstralung radiation inside a space module orbiting the Earth using the Monte Carlo simulation. The software Monte Carlo N-Particle (MCNP) will simulate the absorbed dose in samples of tissue and silicon inside a space module.