• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.7
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• pp.2516-2523
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• 2024

This study aims to validate the dosimetric characteristics of Low Dose Rate (LDR) I-125 source Geant4-based Monte Carlo code. According to the recommendation of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) task group report (TG-43), the dosimetric parameters of a new brachytherapy source should be verified either experimentally or theoretically before clinical procedures. The simulation studies are very important since this procedure delivers a high dose of radiation to the tumor with only a minimal dose affecting the surrounding tissues. GEANT4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit associated brachytherapy example was modified, adapted and several updated techniques have been developed to facilitate and smooth radiotherapy techniques. The great concordance of the current study results with the consensus data and with the results of other MC based studies is promising. It implies that Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation has the potential to be used as a reliable and standard simulation code in the field of brachytherapy for verification and treatment planning purposes.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.124-134
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• 2010

The Geant4 simulation toolkit provides improved or renewed physics model according to the version. The latest Geant4.9.3 which has been recoded by developers applies inserted Livermore data and renewed physics model to the low energy electromagnetic physics model. And also, Geant4.9.3 improved the physics factors by modified code. In this study, the stopping power and CSDA(Continuously Slowing Down Approximation) range data of electron or particles were acquired in various material and then, these data were compared with NIST(National Institute of Standards and Technology) data. Through comparison between data of Geant4 simulation and NIST, the improvement of physics model on low energy electromagnetic of Geant4.9.3 was evaluated by comparing the Geant4.9.2.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4209-4214
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• 2022

Precise modelling of the interaction of ions with materials is important for many applications including material characterization, ion implantation in devices, thermonuclear fusion, hadron therapy, secondary particle production (e.g. neutron), etc. In this study, a new approach using the Geant4 toolkit in combination with the Bayesian regularization (BR) learning algorithm of the feed-forward neural network (FFNN) is developed to estimate the range of ions in materials accurately and quickly. The different incident ions at different energies are interacted with the target materials. The Geant4 is utilized to model the interactions and to calculate the range of the ions. Afterward, the appropriate architecture of the FFNN-BR with the relevant input features is utilized to learn the modelled ranges and to estimate the new ranges for the new cases. The notable achievements of the proposed approach are: 1- The range of ions in different materials is given as quickly as possible and the time required for estimating the ranges can be neglected (i.e. less than 0.01 s by a typical personal computer). 2- The proposed approach can generalize its ability for estimating the new untrained cases. 3- There is no need for a pre-made lookup table for the estimation of the range values.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.146-148
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• 2012

The use of GEANT4 simulation toolkit has increased in the radiation medical field for the design of treatment system and the calibration or validation of treatment plans. Moreover, it is used especially on calculating dose simulation using medical data for radiation therapy. However, using internal visualization tool of GEANT4 detector constructions on expressing dose result has deficiencies because it cannot display isodose line. No one has attempted to use this code to a real patient's data. Therefore, to complement this problem, using the result of gMocren that is a three-dimensional volume-visualizing tool, we tried to display a simulated dose distribution and isodose line on medical image. In addition, we have compared cross-validation on the result of gMocren and GEANT4 simulation with commercial radiation treatment planning system. We have extracted the analyzed data of dose distribution, using real patient's medical image data with a program based on Monte Carlo simulation and visualization tool for radiation isodose mapping.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2421-2427
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• 2024

In this research, the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was simulated and exposed to electron radiation with up to 20 keV energy. Absorbed energy was measured for spike protein, nucleocapsid protein, and envelope of the virus. Simulations were performed by Geant4-DNA in a water environment at temperature of 20 ℃ and pressure of 1 atm. Since the viral RNA is kept inside the nucleocapsid protein, damage to this area could destroy the viral RNA strand and create an inactive virus. Our findings showed that electron beams with an energy of 2.5 keV could cause a maximum absorption dose and consequently maximum damage to the nucleocapsid and effectively be used for inactivation virus.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.5
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• pp.1444-1450
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• 2019

The fast-neutron shielding behaviour (FNSB) of two clay-materials (Ball clay and Kaolin)of Southwestern Nigeria ($7.49^{\circ}N$, $4.55^{\circ}E$) have been investigated using effective removal cross section, ${\Sigma}_R(cm^{-1})$, mass removal cross section, ${\Sigma}_{R/{\rho}}(cm^2g^{-1})$ and Mean free path, ${\lambda}$ (cm). These parameters decide neutron shielding behaviour of any material. A computer program - WinNC-Toolkit has been used for computation of these parameters. The toolkit evaluates these parameters by using elemental compositions and densities of samples. The proficiency of WinNC-Toolkit code was probe by using MCNPX and GEANT4 to model fast neutron transmission of the samples under narrow beam geometry, intending to represent the actual experimental setup. Direct calculation of effective removal cross section ($cm^{-1}$) of the samples was also carried out. The results from each of the methods for each types of the studied clay-materials (Ball clay and Kaolin) shows similar trend. The trend might be the fingerprint of water content retained in each of the samples being baked at different temperature. The compositions of each sample have been obtained by Particle-Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) technique (Tandem Pelletron Accelerator: 1.7 MV, Model 5SDH). The FNSB of the selected clay-materials have been compared with standard concrete. The cognizance of various factors such as availability, thermo-chemical stability and water retaining ability by the clay-samples can be analyzed for efficacy of the material for their FNSB.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.79-84
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• 2011

In this study, Geant4 based Monte Carlo simulations were carried out for medical linear accelerator. Modified Medical Linac2 toolkit was used for calculation. The energy spectrum, most probable energy and the photon mean energy compared with the published results using the EGS4 code. The results well agreed with published results. The calculated results of photon fluence, energy fluence and mean energy according to the radius from the centre of the beam were analyzed. Monte Carlo simulation using Medical Linac2 code is considered to be useful for analysis of medical linear accelerator. Because the calculated results varies depending on Physics List model for same head structure. It it important to choose the right model for research purpose. Monte Carlo simulation using GEANT4 Medical Linac2 is a valuable for any novice to adopt this code to the study related to 6 MV photon fluence from medical linear accelerator.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.225-234
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• 2009

Geant4 (GEometry ANd Tracking) provides various packages specialized in modeling electromagnetic interactions. The validation of Geant4 physics models is a significant issue for the applications of Geant4 based simulation in medical physics. The purpose of this study is to evaluate accuracy of Geant4 electromagnetic physics for proton therapy. The validation was performed both the Continuous slowing down approximation (CSDA) range and the stopping power. In each test, the reliability of the electromagnetic models in a selected group of materials was evaluated such as water, bone, adipose tissue and various atomic elements. Results of Geant4 simulation were compared with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reference data. As results of comparison about water, bone and adipose tissue, average percent difference of CSDA range were presented 1.0%, 1.4% and 1.4%, respectively. Average percent difference of stopping power were presented 0.7%, 1.0% and 1.3%, respectively. The data were analyzed through the kolmogorov-smirnov Goodness-of-Fit statistical analysis test. All the results from electromagnetic models showed a good agreement with the reference data, where all the corresponding p-values are higher than the confidence level $\alpha=0.05$ set.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.36-41
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• 2015

The Monte Carlo based dose calculation program for stereotactic body radiotherapy was developed in this study. The Geant4 toolkit widely used in the radiotherapy was used for this study. The photon energy spectrum of the medical linac studied in the previous research was applied for the patient dose calculations. The geometry of the radiation fields defined by multi-leaf collimators were taken into account in the PrimaryGeneratorAction class of the Geant4 code. The total of 8 fields were demonstrated in the patient dose calculations, where rotation matrix as a function of gantry angle was used for the determination of the source positions. The DicomHandler class converted the binary file format of the DICOM data containing the matrix number, pixel size, endian type, HU number, bit size, padding value and high bits order to the ASCII file format. The patient phantom was constructed using the converted ASCII file. The EGSnrc code was used to compare the calculation efficiency of the material data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2767-2773
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• 2021

We used the GEANT4 Monte Carlo MC Toolkit to simulate carbon ion beams incident on water, tissue, and bone, taking into account nuclear fragmentation reactions. Upon increasing the energy of the primary beam, the position of the Bragg-Peak transfers to a location deeper inside the phantom. For different materials, the peak is located at a shallower depth along the beam direction and becomes sharper with increasing electron density NZ. Subsequently, the generated depth dose of the Bragg curve is then benchmarked with experimental data from GSI in Germany. The results exhibit a reasonable correlation with GSI experimental data with an accuracy of between 0.02 and 0.08 cm, thus establishing the basis to adopt MC in heavy-ion treatment planning. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov K-S test further ascertained from a statistical point of view that the simulation data matched the experimentally measured data very well. The two-dimensional isodose contours at the entrance were compared to those around the peak position and in the tail region beyond the peak, showing that bone produces more dose, in comparison to both water and tissue, due to secondary doses. In the water, the results show that the maximum energy deposited per fragment is mainly attributed to secondary carbon ions, followed by secondary boron and beryllium. Furthermore, the number of protons produced is the highest, thus making the maximum contribution to the total dose deposition in the tail region. Finally, the associated spectra of neutrons and photons were analyzed. The mean neutron energy value was found to be 16.29 MeV, and 1.03 MeV for the secondary gamma. However, the neutron dose was found to be negligible as compared to the total dose due to their longer range.