Comparative Study of PHITS and FLUKA for Cosmic Radiation Shielding Evaluations of Low Density and Small Atomic Mass Number Materials

Abstract

The two well-known Monte Carlo transport codes called FLUKA and PHITS have been used for comparing the cosmic radiation shielding properties of various low density and small mass number materials that are used for spacecraft constructing materials or components.  The work is focused on the evaluation of shielding efficiency of the materials exposed to a known Solar Particle Event sources. Then we compared their effectiveness with aluminum which is the main primary metal used in spacecraft by employing FLUKA and PHITS programs. The shielding materials are liquid hydrogen, water, polyethylene and aluminum. The shielding efficiency of materials is evaluated by comparing the amount of dose absorbed by the water. The absorption doses obtaining from each material are compared with the aluminum. The efficiency comparison is made by fixing the area density of a shielding material. We found that liquid hydrogen, polyethylene and water all outperform the aluminum for Solar Particle Event Shielding. We also found that FLUKA and PHITS are alternate codes that will be produced a very similar computational results for these circumstances.