Updated calculations for routine space-shielding radiation dose estimates:

Abstract

New, more-extensive, depth-dose distributions for electrons, electron-bremsstrahlung, and protons have been calculated, based on improvements in cross-section information since the development of the original SHIELDOSE code. The new database covers incident electron energies from 5 keV to 50 MeV, with the bremsstrahlung tail calculated for depths out to 50 g/cm 2 , and incident proton energies from 10 keV to 10 GeV. Effects of nuclear interactions on proton depth-dose distributions in aluminum shields have been estimated, and options are provided to include these approximations in test calculations. In addition to the absorbed dose in aluminum, the dose in small volumes of graphite. Si, air, bone, CaF 2 , GaAs, LiF, Si0 2 , tissue or water can be evaluated. The functionality of new code is much the same as the old code; however, the resultant dose estimates as a function of depth in aluminum spacecraft can be somewhat different. Through the use of a companion code based on approximate transformations, results can be extended beyond the dose as a function of depth in plane slabs and at centers of solid spheres to include the dose at off-center points in a solid sphere and at the inner surface of spherical shells.