MaMP and FeMP: computational mesh phantoms applied for studying the variation of WBC efficiency using a NaI(Tl) detector

Fonseca, Telma Cristina Ferreira; Bogaerts, Ria; Lebacq, A. L.; Ribeiro, Rosane Moreira; Vanhavere, F.

doi:10.1088/0952-4746/34/3/529

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…These new computational phantoms were developed without using medical images taken from human subjects and they have no internal organs. They were used for the numerical calibration of two WBC systems, the Nuclear Power Plant in Doel (KCDoel) (Fonseca et al 2014a) and the AGM laboratory of SCK-CEN in Mol, Belgium (Fonseca et al 2014b).…”

Section: Objectives Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The calculation yielded a discrepancy of only 2% for Cs-137 and for a 0.1 MeV energy source 3% in terms of calibration factor ratio between the two phantoms. It may be concluded that, as far as the WBC calibration is concerned, the homogeneous material composition of the MaMP and FeMP phantoms are suitable for counting efficiency calibration (Fonseca et al 2014a(Fonseca et al , 2014b. In 2006, Carlan et al (2006) have studied and concluded that tissue heterogeneities do not introduce major errors in measurements.…”

Section: Uncertainties On the Attenuation Coefficientsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A methodology to develop computational phantoms with adjustable posture for WBC calibration

Fonseca

Bogaerts²,

Hunt

et al. 2014

Phys. Med. Biol.

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A Whole Body Counter (WBC) is a facility to routinely assess the internal contamination of exposed workers, especially in the case of radiation release accidents. The calibration of the counting device is usually done by using anthropomorphic physical phantoms representing the human body. Due to such a challenge of constructing representative physical phantoms a virtual calibration has been introduced. The use of computational phantoms and the Monte Carlo method to simulate radiation transport have been demonstrated to be a worthy alternative. In this study we introduce a methodology developed for the creation of realistic computational voxel phantoms with adjustable posture for WBC calibration. The methodology makes use of different software packages to enable the creation and modification of computational voxel phantoms. This allows voxel phantoms to be developed on demand for the calibration of different WBC configurations. This in turn helps to study the major source of uncertainty associated with the in vivo measurement routine which is the difference between the calibration phantoms and the real persons being counted. The use of realistic computational phantoms also helps the optimization of the counting measurement. Open source codes such as MakeHuman and Blender software packages have been used for the creation and modelling of 3D humanoid characters based on polygonal mesh surfaces. Also, a home-made software was developed whose goal is to convert the binary 3D voxel grid into a MCNPX input file. This paper summarizes the development of a library of phantoms of the human body that uses two basic phantoms called MaMP and FeMP (Male and Female Mesh Phantoms) to create a set of male and female phantoms that vary both in height and in weight. Two sets of MaMP and FeMP phantoms were developed and used for efficiency calibration of two different WBC set-ups: the Doel NPP WBC laboratory and AGM laboratory of SCK-CEN in Mol, Belgium.

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Section: Objectives Of This Studymentioning

confidence: 99%