Modelling of an industrial environment, part 1.: Monte Carlo simulations of photon transport

After a nuclear accident releasing radioactive material into the environment the external exposures may contribute significantly to the radiation exposure of the population (UNSCEAR 1988, 2000). For urban populations the external gamma exposure from radionuclides deposited on the surfaces of the urban-industrial environments yields the dominant contributions to the total dose to the public (Kelly 1987; Jacob and Meckbach 1990). The radiation field is naturally influenced by the environment around the sources. For calculations of the shielding effect of the structures in complex and realistic urban environments Monte Carlo methods turned out to be useful tools (Jacob and Meckbach 1987; Meckbach et al. 1988). Using these methods a complex environment can be set up in which the photon transport can be solved on a reliable way. The accuracy of the methods is in principle limited only by the knowledge of the atomic cross sections and the computational time. Several papers using Monte Carlo results for calculating doses from the external gamma exposures were published (Jacob and Meckbach 1987, 1990; Meckbach et al. 1988; Rochedo et al. 1996). In these papers the Monte Carlo simulations were run in urban environments and for different photon energies. The industrial environment can be defined as such an area where productive and/or commercial activity is carried out. A good example can be a factory or a supermarket. An industrial environment can rather be different from the urban ones as for the types and structures of the buildings and their dimensions. These variations will affect the radiation field of this environment. Hence there is a need to run new Monte Carlo simulations designed specially for the industrial environments