Optimization of detection geometry for industrial SPECT by Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has developed an industrial SPECT to investigate the fluid flow and mixing patterns in columns. It has been found that the industrial SPECT is indeed a very powerful tool to study the hydrodynamics in multiphase reactors. One of the practical issues in the development of industrial SPECTs is to achieve a required imaging resolution of an industrial SPECT with a minimum number of component detectors, the number of which is frequently limited by both the size of the detectors and the total cost of the imaging system. In the present study, a set of different geometries of industrial SPECTs were evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation using MCNPX to determine the minimum number of detectors that will provide a spatial resolution that corresponds to 10% of the cylindrical column diameter. Our results show that 11 and 12 detectors will satisfy the 10% resolution requirement for the 40 cm and 60 cm diameter columns, respectively, for the industrial SPECT and radioisotopes considered in the present study. The conclusion of this result is valid only for the case considered in the present study, but we believe that the same procedure can be applied to other industrial SPECTs for this kind of optimization.

Statistical analysis for discrimination of prompt gamma ray peak induced by high energy neutron: Monte Carlo simulation study

“…The area size of the detector was referred from the specification of actual instruments which is used to the PGAA at the harbor or the airport. However, in order to increase the counts number of the gamma ray, the thickness of the detector was set thicker than conventional instruments [5,9]. The distance between neutron source and the center of target was set at the 100 cm, and the distance between detector and target was defined as the 50 cm [9,27].…”

“…Thus, this prompt gamma ray activation analysis (PGAA) method can be applied to detect explosives and drugs in an airport or a harbor [6,7]. The discrimination of the peaks from the energy spectra depends on the several factors such as an energy resolution, the density of the material for the gamma ray detection, and an effective atomic numbers [8,9]. In this research, Monte Carlo n-particle extended (MCNPX version 2.5.0 LA-CP-05-0369) simulations were used to simulate the spectra of the eighteen detector materials for the discrimination of the prompt gamma ray peak [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26].…”

A virtual laboratory for radiotracer and sealed-source applications in industry

“…For the radiotracer techniques, modelling software has been used to process the RTD measurements and analyse the results [16,17]. Monte Carlo codes have been used to determine the detection system required to produce the desired single-photon emission CT (SPECT) image resolution [18].…”