The purpose of this study was to determine how well the Monte Carlo transport
code FLUKA can simulate a tissue-equivalent proportional counter (TEPC) and produce
the expected delta ray events when exposed to high energy heavy ions (HZE) like in the
galactic cosmic ray (GCR) environment. Accurate transport codes are desirable because
of the high cost of beam time, the inability to measure the mixed field GCR on the
ground and the flexibility they offer in the engineering and design process.
A spherical TEPC simulating a 1 um site size was constructed in FLUKA and its
response was compared to experimental data for an 56Fe beam at 360 MeV/nucleon. The
response of several narrow beams at different impact parameters were used to explain
the features of the response of the same detector exposed to a uniform field of radiation.
Additionally, an investigation was made into the effect of the wall thickness on the
response of the TEPC and the range of delta rays in the tissue-equivalent (TE) wall
material. A full impact parameter test (from IP = 0 to IP = detector radius) was
performed to show that FLUKA produces the expected wall effect. That is, energy deposition in the gas volume can occur even when the primary beam does not pass
through the gas volume.
A final comparison to experimental data was made for the simulated TEPC
exposed to various broad beams in the energy range of 200 - 1000 MeV/nucleon.
FLUKA overestimated energy deposition in the gas volume in all cases. The FLUKA
results differed from the experimental data by an average of 25.2 % for yF and 12.4 %
for yD. It is suggested that this difference can be reduced by adjusting the FLUKA
default ionization potential and density correction factors.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2010-05-8013 |
| Date | 2010 May 1900 |
| Creators | Northum, Jeremy Dell |
| Contributors | Guetersloh, Stephen B. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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