Photon Transport for Radioisotope Source

lipohlmann · March 28, 2025, 8:20pm

Hello All,

I am looking to use OpenMC to do shielding and heat deposition calculations for a radioisotope source. In particular, the source is SrTiO3, and the radioisotope is Sr-90. The documentation I have found thus far for OpenMC seems to primarily focus on neutron interactions with photon emissions. Would OpenMC be able to photon transport calculations for gamma rays and x-rays for a neutron-free source like Sr-90 decay?

For context, I am looking to eventually couple OpenMC’s outputs with Cardinal to NekRS to do conjugate heat transfer and CFD analysis.

Thank you in advance!

wahidluthfi · March 29, 2025, 11:57am

Hi Liam, welcome to the openmc community.
From what I know, openmc can solve the photon transport calculation without a neutron source in fixed source mode, and I think this example of a gamma detector can be used as a starting point for your case scenario.

github.com/openmc-dev/openmc-notebooks

gamma-detector.ipynb

main

{
 "cells": [
  {
   "attachments": {},
   "cell_type": "markdown",
   "metadata": {},
   "source": [
    "# Simulating the Signal of a Gamma Detector\n",
    "\n",
    "This IPython Notebook explains how to calculate the signal of a gamma detector using the pulse-height tally. \n",
    "It also shows how to create a realistic image of a detector simulation that takes into account the detector's intrinsic resolution.\n",
    "\n",
    "In particular, this Notebook illustrates the following features:\n",
    "* setting up a simulation of a gamma detector \n",
    "* defining a gamma source from a specific isotopic mixture\n",
    "* reprocessing the simulation output to obtain a realistic pulse-height spectrum"
   ]
  },
  {
   "cell_type": "code",

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Photon Transport for Radioisotope Source

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