Best software to simulate the radiation emitted by uranium powder inside a pipe?

[Phys pilot]

TL;DR Summary

I'm looking for the best software to simulate the radiation emitted by uranium powder inside a pipe.

Hello,

I need to carry some simulations for my master's project and my tutor doesn't know much about simulations. I can't tell much since it is related with a private company but basically I'll have to simulate and measure the radiation emitted by some enriched uranium particles or uranium powder inside of a pipe. It is related with the uranium that gets accumulated inside the extraction pipes. The measure should be in sieverts/hour.

The question is, which is the best way to simulate this? It should be open source. I know that geant4 would be probably the best but I don't know if there are easier options since I'm not great at coding. I've checked more codes but most of them are focused on medical physics and I don't know if I can I do what I'm asking for. Iknow there are some codes like SERPENT, OPENMC, PHITS, FLUKA...
P.S: Idon't have access to MCNP.
Thank you!

 

[Phys pilot]

Hello,
I don't know if is possible to answer my own post to boost visibility after a week. Thanks.

 

[Astronuc]

Probably PHITS would work.

Is the pipe dry with a layer of powder, or is it wet or filled with liquid? The pipe dimensions and composition would be critical inputs, and presence of water would be important with respect to attenuation of the radiation, in addition to the pipe.

The simulation is fairly basic if one can describe the source term geometry and density.

For any volume, the amount (number of atoms) determines the activity of the radiation. The activity is simply the decay constant time the atomic density. One appears to be considering a distributed source term. Then one simulates the interaction of the radiation from the source(s), which are attenuated (scattered) by the matter through which they pass. The alpha activity should be relatively, but beta and gamma radiation would be the main types of radiation.

 

[Phys pilot]

Probably PHITS would work.

Is the pipe dry with a layer of powder, or is it wet or filled with liquid? The pipe dimensions and composition would be critical inputs, and presence of water would be important with respect to attenuation of the radiation, in addition to the pipe.

The simulation is fairly basic if one can describe the source term geometry and density.

For any volume, the amount (number of atoms) determines the activity of the radiation. The activity is simply the decay constant time the atomic density. One appears to be considering a distributed source term. Then one simulates the interaction of the radiation from the source(s), which are attenuated (scattered) by the matter through which they pass. The alpha activity should be relatively, but beta and gamma radiation would be the main types of radiation.

Thank you very much for your anwer.

I heard about PHITS before so I guess that it is the way to go. I'll try to get the license and hope it is easier to get than MCNP.

As far as I know the pipe should be dry and I don't know the dimensions and the material yet, but I know that some are round pipes and other ones are squared pipes.

Thank you for the step by step procedure to do the simulation, I have to get familiar with the code first. Is there a big community or forum to learn about it? I see that they do in-person tutorial and there are a few tutorials in their youtube channel.
Also, my biggest concern is about the difficulty and learning curve of PHITS since I'm really bad at coding, do you need to code in some language to do the simulations? I see that there is a youtube video from 2021 about a 3D package, so I don't know if you can use it like if it were some CFD software like Ansys or Autodesk.

Edit: What about pc requirements? in their website it says no specific requiremtns but I just have a normal laptop from 2016.

 

[Astronuc]

I heard about PHITS before so I guess that it is the way to go. I'll try to get the license and hope it is easier to get than MCNP.

PHITS is much easier to obtain than MCNP, and according to one expert, PHITS is probably better than MCNP for such a calculation. It took me a few weeks to get PHITS in contrast to months (+ fees) to get MCNP.

There are PHITS tutorials and training sessions.

Edit: What about pc requirements? in their website it says no specific requiremtns but I just have a normal laptop from 2016.

I have PHITS installed on a MacBook Pro laptop running Catalina or later. I believe it runs under Windows as well.

In the PHITS application file, one indicates the type of computer and OS, and importantly, there are two places for one's signature (one can digitally sign).