Monte Carlo Simulation of the Irradiation of Alanine Coated Film Dosimeters with Accelerated Electrons

The Monte Carlo code PENELOPE was used to simulate the irradiation of alanine coated film dosimeters with electron beams of energies from 1 to 5 MeV being produced by a high-current industrial electron accelerator. This code includes a geometry package that defines complex quadratic geometries, such as those of the irradiation of products in an irradiation processing facility. In the present case the energy deposited on a water film at the surface of a wood parallelepiped was calculated using the program PENMAIN, which is a generic main program included in the PENELOPE distribution package. The results from the simulation were then compared with measurements performed by irradiating alanine film dosimeters with electrons using a 150 kW DynamitronTM electron accelerator. The alanine films were placed on top of a set of wooden planks using the same geometrical arrangement as the one used for the simulation. The way the results from the simulation can be correlated with the actual measurements, taking into account the irradiation parameters, is described. An estimation of the percentage difference between measurements and calculations is also presented.