Computation speeds and memory requirements of mesh-type ICRP reference computational phantoms in Geant4, MCNP6, and PHITS

Yeom, Y. S.*; Han, M. C.*; Choi, C.*; Han, H.*; Shin, B.*; Furuta, Takuya; Kim, C. H.*

Health Physics, 116(5), p.664 - 676, 2019/05

https://doi.org/10.1097/HP.0000000000000999

Recently, Task Group 103 of the ICRP developed the mesh-type reference computational phantoms (MCRPs), which are planned for use in future ICRP dose coefficient calculation. Performance of major Monte Carlo particle transport codes (Geant4, MCNP6, and PHITS) were tested with MCRP. External and internal exposure of various particles and energies were calculated and the computational times and required memories were compared. Additionally calculation for voxel-mesh phantom was also conducted so that the influence of different mesh-representation in each code was studied. Memory usage of MRCP was as large as 10 GB with Geant4 and MCNP6 while it is much less with PHITS (1.2 GB). In addition, the computational time required for MRCP tends to increase compared to voxel-mesh phantoms with Geant4 and MCNP6 while it is equal or tends to decrease with PHITS.