This study analyzes the radiation exposure dose that an operator can receive from radioactive components during maintenance or repair of a linear accelerator. This study further aims to evaluate radiological safety. Simulations are performed on 10 MV and 15 MV photon beams, which are the most frequently used high-energy beams in clinics. The simulation analyzes components in order of activity and the human exposure dose based on the amount of neutrons received. As a result, the neutron dose, radiation dose, and human exposure dose are ranked in order of target, primary collimator, flattening filter, multi-leaf collimator, and secondary collimator, where the minimum dose is 9.34E-07 mSv/h and the maximum is 1.71E-02 mSv/h. When applying the general dose limit (radiation worker 20 mSv/year, pubic 1 mSv/year) in accordance with the Nuclear Safety Act, all components of a linear accelerator are evaluated as below the threshold value. Therefore, the results suggest that there is no serious safety issue for operators in maintaining and repairing a linear accelerator. Nevertheless, if an operator recognizes an exposure from the components of a linear accelerator during operation and considers the operating time and shielding against external exposure, exposure of the operator is expected to be minimized. K: Accelerator modelling and simulations (multi-particle dynamics; single-particle dynamics); Instrumentation for gamma-electron therapy; Radiotherapy concepts 1Corresponding author.

Linear accelerators are now playing a pivotal role in radiotherapy and high energy photon beams of a strength exceeding 8 MV have recently been mainly used. However, when using high energy photons, neutron contamination due to photonuclear reaction develops. This study focused on the dose distribution of photoneutrons emitted from a linear accelerator using Monte Carlo MCNPX code. MCNPX was used to simulate transportation of photoneutrons in the linear accelerator and the entire space of the radiotherapy room and is useful for calculating the flux, spectrum and absorbed dose. As result of the simulation, we could know that the neutron absorbed dose was as less as negligible when comparing to the photon absorbed dose in radiotherapy room. And it was found that the photoneutron flux increased substantially starting from 10 MV while the absorbed dose rose sharply between 10 MV and 12 MV. It was observed that although the ratio of thermal neutrons to fast neutrons was not altered as the energy increased, it was found that as the distance from the source increased the ratio of thermal neutrons rose markedly. KEYWORDS: Detector modelling and simulations I (interaction of radiation with matter, interaction of photons with matter, interaction of hadrons with matter, etc); Models and simulations; Accelerator modelling and simulations (multi-particle dynamics; single-particle dynamics); Radiation calculations