Re: Sheilding Software Inquiry

[Craig Harmon <charmon@skid.ps.uci.edu>]

On Wed, 12 Jul 1995, Michael P. Grissom wrote:

> Most notably, in RSIC's Monte Carlo venue, MCNP.  A big burley
> program that can run on PCs if you don't mind taking a few
> weeks!  Also, EGS4 and FLUKA can be used for these purposes
> (particularly for accelerator shielding applications).
 
Yes, these programs are good, but they also require some physics and 
computer programming knowledge.  I personally wouldn't recommend them to 
anyone with less than a BS Physics background. 

Without a hard physics or nuclear engineering background, they won't 
understand the physics involved, and the subsequent approximations used. 
Instead you end up with silly questions like that the one that was 
crossposted to this group from Dr. J. Stubbs of ORAU.GOV a month ago.  
Had he read and understood the 100+ pages of physics that is included in 
the manual, the answer would have been trivial.  (I.e. a program design to 
avoid the infrared catastrophy)

Also, none of these programs handle photoneutron production, which is a 
shame, because it seems MCNP does an outstanding job of neutron transport 
and neutron-induced gamma production. 

What do the accelerator people do for brem-induced neutrons?  And if 
you are going to use FLUKA, why not just use GEANT?

Regards,

Craig

charmon@skid.ps.uci.edu
HARMON.CRAIG_F+@WEST-LA.VA.GOV