Things to consider when your simulations are finished – teasers from "EURADOS WG6 Intercomparisons in Computational Dosimetry" (Special Issue of Radiation Measurements)

Monte Carlo simulations of radiation transport have become an indispensable tool in radiation dosimetry, and many of the available codes have been developed for easy deployment by non-expert users. To monitor the state of the art of the practical use of these tools, several different exercises were organized by EURADOS Working Group 6 “Computational Dosimetry”. The outcomes of these studies have been recently published in a Virtual Special Issue of Radiation Measurements entitled “EURADOS Intercomparison in Computational Dosimetry”.

The webinar presents some of the lessons learned from the exercises regarding common pitfalls and necessary quality checks that researchers performing simulations should be aware of. The examples chosen include a common problem of relevance to medical physics experts (determination of the dose to patient in an X-ray examination), the calculation of the dose to the foetus from proton therapy in pregnancy, and the more academic case of the dose around a single gold nanoparticle in water irradiated by X-rays. The issues considered are not specific to these examples but generalize to all Monte Carlo simulations.