• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.267-268
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• 2002

Microbeam is a new avenue of radiation research especially in radiation biology and radiation protection. Selective irradiation of an ionizing particle to a targeted cell organelle may disclose such mechanisms as signal transaction among cell organelles and cell-to-cell communication in the processes toward an endpoint observed. Bystander effect, existence of which is clearly evidenced by application of the particle microbeam to biological experiments, suggests potential underestimation in the conventional risk estimation at low particle fluence rates, such as environment of space radiations in ISS (International Space Station). To promote these studies we started the construction of our microbeam facility (named as SPICE) to our HVEE Tandem accelerator (3.4 MeV proton and 5.1 MeV $^4$He$\^$2+/). For our primary goal, "irradiation of single particle to cell organelle within a position resolution of 2 micrometer in a reasonable irradiation time", special features are considered. Usage of a triplet Q magnet for focussing the beam to submicron of size is an outstanding feature compared to facilities of other institutes. Followings are other features: precise position control of cell dish holder, design of the cell dish, data acquisition of microscopic image of a cell organelle (cell nucleus) and data processing, a reliable particle detection, soft and hard wares to integrate all these related data, to control and irradiate exactly determined number of particles to a targeted spot.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.452-459
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• 2023

The core power control is an important issue for the study of dynamic characteristics in China initiative accelerator driven subcritical system (CiADS), which has direct impact on the control strategy and safety analysis process. The CiADS is an experimental facility that is only controlled by the proton beam intensity without considering the control rods in the current engineering design stage. In order to get the optimized operation scheme with the stable and reliable features, the variation of beam intensity using the continuous and periodic control approaches has been adopted, and the change of collimator and the adjusting of duty ratio have been proposed in the power control process. Considering the neutronics and the thermal-hydraulics characteristics in CiADS, the physical model for the core power control has been established by means of the point reactor kinetics method and the lumped parameter method. Moreover, the multi-inputs single-output (MISO) logical structure for the power control process has been constructed using proportional integral derivative (PID) controller, and the meta-heuristic algorithm has been employed to obtain the global optimized parameters for the stable running mode without producing large perturbations. Finally, the verification and validation of the control method have been tested based on the reference scenarios in considering the disturbances of spallation neutron source and inlet temperature respectively, where all the numerical results reveal that the optimization method has satisfactory performance in the CiADS core power control scenarios.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2335-2347
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• 2023

As medical facilities are usually built at urban areas, special concrete aggregates and evaluation methods are needed to optimize the design of concrete walls by balancing density, thickness, material composition, cost, and other factors. Carbon treatment rooms require a high radiation shielding requirement, as the neutron yield from carbon therapy is much higher than the neutron yield of protons. In this case study, the maximum carbon energy is 430 MeV/u and the maximum current is 0.27 nA from a hybrid particle therapy system. Hospital or facility construction should consider this requirement to design a special heavy concrete. In this work, magnetite is adopted as the major aggregate. Density is determined mainly by the major aggregate content of magnetite, and a heavy concrete test block was constructed for structural tests. The compressive strength is 35.7 MPa. The density ranges from 3.65 g/cm³ to 4.14 g/cm³, and the iron mass content ranges from 53.78% to 60.38% from the 12 cored sample measurements. It was found that there is a linear relationship between density and iron content, and mixing impurities should be the major reason leading to the nonuniform element and density distribution. The effect of this nonuniformity on radiation shielding properties for a carbon treatment room is investigated by three groups of Monte Carlo simulations. Higher density dominates to reduce shielding thickness. However, a higher content of high-Z elements will weaken the shielding strength, especially at a lower dose rate threshold and vice versa. The weakened side effect of a high iron content on the shielding property is obvious at 2.5 µSv=h. Therefore, we should not blindly pursue high Z content in engineering. If the thickness is constrained to 2 m, then the density can be reduced to 3.3 g/cm³, which will save cost by reducing the magnetite composition with 50.44% iron content. If a higher density of 3.9 g/cm³ with 57.65% iron content is selected for construction, then the thickness of the wall can be reduced to 174.2 cm, which will save space for equipment installation.

• Journal of Bio-Environment Control
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.370-376
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• 2009

To produce uniform seedlings of tomato and cucumber with inexpensive way, their seedling quality by different light sources was investigated. The raising of seedling was performed by red LED (light emitting diodes), blue LED, red-blue mixed LED or fluorescent light with a fixed PPF(photosynthetic proton flux) level, about $40{\sim}60{\mu}mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}sec^{-1}$. In the both tomato and cucumber, the rapid extension of hypocotyledonary axis was observed in Blue LED than fluorescent light, but opposite result was found in Red and mixed LED. During the nursery period of tomato and cucumber, the fresh weight was the highest in Red LED as 74% increasement in tomato and 74% in cucumber. In the case of seedling quality after the tomato nursery, there was no difference in the positions of 1st flower cluster and the number of bearing-flower per flower cluster by each light source. In case of cucumber, until 20th node, the setting ratio of female flower was higher in LED than fluorescent treatment, and also more healthy fruit setting was found in LED. Therefore, we assume that the Red or mixed (Red 2 + Blue 1) LED is more favorable to produce high quality tomato and cucumber seedlings in closed nursery facility.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.209-218
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• 2012

Recently, an adequate number of qualified medical physicist is needed for achieving effective treatment and securing safety to the patient, staff and the public on the course of radiation therapy, since the equipment and the technique of radiation therapy are being developed fast and becoming complex. The studies on medical physics staffing level in United State and European countries were investigated. These results were applied to the domestic situation in order to anticipate indirectly the adequate number of medical physicist in Korea. The current number of medical physicists of 6 (middle to large sized) hospitals in Korea was less than 50% of number recommended in the study. Further detailed research specified on the domestic situation is needed in order to expect adequate number of medical physicist more accurately, and particle beam therapy has to be also considered in the research since the facility site is increasing gradually.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.44 no.4
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• pp.359-365
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• 2021

A heavy particle accelerator is a device that accelerates particles using high energy and is used in various fields such as medical and industrial fields as well as research. However, secondary neutrons and particle fragments are generated by the high-energy particle beam, and among them, the neutrons do not have an electric charge and directly interact with the nucleus to cause radiation of the material. Quantitative evaluation of the radioactive material produced in this way is necessary, but there are many difficulties in actual measurement during or after operation. Therefore, this study compared and evaluated the generated radioactive material in the concrete shield for protons and carbon ions of specific energy by using the simulation code FLUKA. For the evaluation of each energy of proton beam and carbon ion, the reliability of the source term was secured within 2% of the relative error with the data of the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory(NSRL), which is an internationally standardized data. In the evaluation, carbon ions exhibited higher neutron flux than protons. Afterwards, in the evaluation of radioactive materials under actual operating conditions for disposal, a large amount of short-lived beta-decay nuclides occurred immediately after the operation was terminated, and in the case of protons with a high beam speed, more radioactive products were generated than carbon ions. At this time, radionuclides of ⁴⁴Sc, ³H and ²²Na were observed at a high rate. In addition, as the cooling time elapsed, the ratio of long-lived nuclides increased. For nonparticulate radionuclides, ³H, ²²Na, and for particulate radionuclides, ⁴⁴Ti, ⁵⁵Fe, ⁶⁰Co, ¹⁵²Eu, and ¹⁵⁴Eu nuclides showed a high ratio. In this study, it is judged that it is possible to use the particle accelerator as basic data for facility maintenance, repair and dismantling through the prediction of radioactive materials in concrete according to the cooling time after operation and termination of operation.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.12-17
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• 2015

The purpose of the Monte Carlo simulation study was to provide the optimized nozzle design to satisfy the beam conditions for biomedical researches in the Korean heavy-ion accelerator, RAON. The nozzle design was required to produce $C^{12}$ beam satisfying the three conditions; the maximum field size, the dose uniformity and the beam contamination. We employed the GEANT4 toolkit in Monte Carlo simulation to optimize the nozzle design. The beams for biomedical researches were required that the maximum field size should be more than $15{\times}15cm^2$, the dose uniformity was to be less than 3% and the level of beam contamination due to the scattered radiation from collimation systems was less than 5% of total dose. For the field size, we optimized the tilting angle of the circularly rotating beam controlled by a pair of dipole magnets at the most upstream of the user beam line unit and the thickness of the scatter plate located downstream of the dipole magnets. The values of beam scanning angle and the thickness of the scatter plate could be successfully optimized to be $0.5^{\circ}$ and 0.05 cm via this Monte Carlo simulation analysis. For the dose uniformity and the beam contamination, we introduced the new beam configuration technique by the combination of scanning and static beams. With the combination of a central static beam and a circularly rotating beam with the tilting angle of $0.5^{\circ}$ to beam axis, the dose uniformity could be established to be 1.1% in $15{\times}15cm^2$ sized maximum field. For the beam contamination, it was determined by the ratio of the absorbed doses delivered by $C^{12}$ ion and other particles. The level of the beam contamination could be achieved to be less than 2.5% of total dose in the region from 5 cm to 17 cm water equivalent depth in the combined beam configuration. Based on the results, we could establish the optimized nozzle design satisfying the beam conditions which were required for biomedical researches.