Dose field simulation for products irradiated by electron beams: formulation of the problem and its step by step solution with EGS4 computer code

When performing radiation treatment of products using an electron beam much time and money should be spent for numerous measurements to make optimal choice of treatment mode. Direct radiation treatment simulation by means of the EGS4 computer code fails to describe such measurement results correctly. In the paper a multi-step radiation treatment planning procedure is suggested which consists in fitting the EGS4 simulation results to reference measurement results, and using the fitted electron beam parameters and other ones in subsequent computer simulations. It is shown that the fitting procedure should be performed separately for each material or product type. The procedure suggested allows to replace measurements by computer simulations and therefore reduces significantly time and money required for such measurements. (author)