| The albedo concept is used to describe radiation that appears to be reflected from a surface, although in reality this reflected radiation is comprised of radiation that has entered the medium, and is subsequently scattered back through the surface. The albedo often offers a computationally simple alternative to estimate doses from radiation reflected from surfaces surrounding a streaming region. However, albedo data available prior to this study, are limited to relatively few source energies and reflecting media, and are based on obsolete and incomplete cross sections and response functions.; The Monte Carlo code MCNP is applied in this study to calculate the differential photon and neutron dose albedos, along with the differential secondary-photon dose albedo, based on modern response functions and cross section data. Differential photon dose albedo data were calculated for source energies ranging from 0.1 to 10 MeV incident on slabs of concrete, iron, lead, and water. Differential neutron dose albedo data, and the associated differential secondary-photon dose albedo data, were calculated for source energy bands ranging from 0.1 to 10 MeV, and for thermal, Californium, and 14 MeV source spectra, incident on the same four reflecting media.; The results indicate that (1) the approximation of the differential photon dose albedo proposed by Chilton and Huddleston usually deviates from the raw albedo data by less than 10% for source energies between 0.1 and 10.0 MeV, (2) the new 24-parameter approximation of the differential neutron dose albedo deviates from the raw albedo data by less than 10% for source energy bands between 0.1 and 10 MeV, and (3) the five-parameter approximation of the secondary-photon dose albedo deviates from the raw albedo data by less than 25% for source energies between 0.1 and 10 MeV.; The differential dose albedo approximations obtained in this study are used to solve several example radiation transport problems, where the dose from reflected radiation is of importance. One of these problems involves the modification of the MCNP code to use albedo techniques to calculate the dose along the centerline of a three legged duct. MCNP did not include such a feature previously. |
