PHITS Tutorial at the INST

 Particle and Heavy Iron Transport code System (PHITS), a general purpose Monte Carlo particle transport simulation code, has been developed mainly under the collaboration of Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA), Research Organization for Information Science and Technology (RIST), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and several other research institutes in Japan and Europe. PHITS can deal with the transport of almost all particles over wide energy ranges, using different nuclear reaction models and data libraries. This system can be used in various research fields such as accelerator design, radiation shielding and protection, radiotherapy, space-sciences and in many other fields related to particle and heavy ion transport phenomena. The code has so far attracted thousands of users in many countries all over the world.

In order to provide researchers working at the Institute for Nuclear Science and Technology (INST) and other research institutions with an overview of the PHITS code and its applications to radiological protection research, the INST organized a PHITS tutorial as a part of the VINATOM/JAEA Follow-up Training Course on Environmental Radioactivity Monitoring (ERM-9) from 27 to 30 August 2019. As a local organizer, Dr. Le Ngoc Thiem invited Dr. Tatsuhiko Sato, the leader of the current PHITS development team from JAEA to take part in this course as a professional tutor.

More than 20 participants from Vietnamese research institutes and universities related to nuclear science and technology, and several other participants from China, USA attended the tutorial. They learned the usage of PHITS such as the input format, the construction of 3D geometry, the parameter setting, and the definition of sources, particles and tallies.

Besides the basic knowledge above, Dr. Tatsuhiko Sato delivered useful lectures on many PHITS applications in radiation dosimetry, space dosimetry, medical physics, boron neutron capture therapy treatment, and response detection of ionizing radiation monitoring devices.

At the end of the tutorial, all participants were encouraged to conduct PHITS simulations for their own purposes under support of the tutor. They then expressed their appreciation for the usefulness of applying the PHITS simulation to their research and raised their expectations for another higher level course.