Simulation of Cosmic Radiation Transport Inside Aircraft for Safety Applications

Author(s)

Prado, Adriane Cristina Mendes ^{[1, 2]} ; Pazianotto, Mauricio Tizziani ^[1] ; Quesada Molina, Jose Manuel ^[3] ; Cortes-Giraldo, Miguel Antonio ^[3] ; Hubert, Guillaume ^[4] ; Pereira, Marlon Antonio ^[2] ; Federico, Claudio Antonio ^[2]

Affiliation

^[1] Technol Inst Aeronaut, BR-12228900 Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

^[2] Inst Adv Studies, BR-12228001 Sao Jose Dos Campos - Brazil

^[3] Univ Seville, Seville 41004 - Spain

^[4] French Aerosp Lab ONERA, F-31000 Toulouse - France

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AEROSPACE AND ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS; v. 56, n. 5, p. 3462-3475, OCT 2020.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

During the flight, an aircraft is submitted to a radiation environment composed of cosmic-ray-induced particles (CRIP) of which neutrons are responsible for approximately 40% of the crew effective dose and are the main cause of single event effects (SEE) in avionics systems at flight altitudes. A model of Learjet aircraft was developed on Monte Carlo simulation using the MCNPX code in order to detail the CRIP field inside the aircraft. The radiation source modeling was previously developed by a computational platform that simulates the energy and angular distributions of the CRIP along the atmosphere. In this article, we determined the variation of the neutron radiation field in several positions inside the aircraft at 11- and 18-km altitudes and for both equatorial and polar regions. The results suggest that the maximum variation of neutron fluence rate between different positions inside the aircraft shows a tendency of higher differences for a lower energy threshold (thermal and E > 1 MeV) in comparison with those differences for a higher energy threshold (E > 10 MeV). Moreover, the angular distribution results show relevant differences between positions inside aircraft, mainly for thermal neutrons close to the fuel. The general tendency is to enhance these discrepancies for devices with new technologies, due to their lower energy threshold for SEE occurrences. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 17/01886-3 - Evaluation of the influence of the aircraft structure in the cosmic radiation field incident on crews and avionics
• Grantee: Adriane Cristina Mendes Prado
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate