A Monte Carlo-based radiation safety assessment for astronauts in an environment with confined magnetic field shielding

Abstract

The active shielding technique has great potential for radiation protection in space exploration because it has the advantage of a significant mass saving compared with the passive shielding technique. This paper demonstrates a Monte Carlo-based approach to evaluating the shielding effectiveness of the active shielding technique using confined magnetic fields (CMFs). The International Commission on Radiological Protection reference anthropomorphic phantom, as well as the toroidal CMF, was modeled using the Monte Carlo toolkit Geant4. The penetrating primary particle fluence, organ-specific dose equivalent, and male effective dose were calculated for particles in galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) and solar particle events (SPEs). Results show that the SPE protons can be easily shielded against, even almost completely deflected, by the toroidal magnetic field. GCR particles can also be more effectively shielded against by increasing the magnetic field strength. Our results also show that the introduction of a structural Al wall in the CMF did not provide additional shielding for GCR; in fact it can weaken the total shielding effect of the CMF. This study demonstrated the feasibility of accurately determining the radiation field inside the environment and evaluating the organ dose equivalents for astronauts under active shielding using the CMF.

Vive la radiorésistance!: converging research in radiobiology and biogerontology to enhance human radioresistance for deep space exploration and colonization

“…Due to very high energies of charged particles of GCR they easily penetrate passive shielding materials. Although active shielding technologies are also currently being explored, there has been no substantial progress in significantly reducing fluxes of GCR down to levels suitable for long-duration human space missions [ 10 , 11 ]. It is therefore important to explore various prospects of improving human radioresistance using recent advances in biotechnology.…”

Modulation of lateral positions of Bragg peaks via magnetic fields inside cancer patients: Toward magnetic field modulated proton therapy

“…GEANT4 19 is a promising Monte Carlo (MC) simulation code and has been widely applied in dose calculation for medical physics and radiation protection. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] In this study, GEANT4 (version 4.10.1.p02) was adopted to simulate the proton transportation under magnetic fields. Three types of geometry configurations were constructed and investigated using GEANT4.…”

Quality and diversity

“…Finally, there are two other highlighted papers that explore 'niche' issues in radiological protection. In a delightful study, a Chinese-US collaboration demonstrates that the active shielding of spacecraft using toroidal magnetic fields of 2-6 T [12] can be extremely effective in reducing the high doses that could otherwise be incurred from solar particle events, though they are much less effective in protecting against the much more energetic particles present in galactic cosmic rays. The authors also show that having introduced such active shielding there is little or no merit in introducing supplementary passive or structural shielding.…”