Nuclear Inst.

and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127

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Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/nima

Optimization of a B4 C/graphite composite energy degrader and its shielding

for a proton therapy facility✩
Zhiyuan Mei a , Kuanjun Fan a ,∗, Zhikai Liang a , Jinfeng Yang b , Mingwu Fan a
a State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Huazhong University of Science
and Technology(HUST), Wuhan 430074, Hubei China
b
Osaka university, Japan

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Proton therapy is an advanced cancer treatment modality due to its ability to precisely deliver radiation doses
Proton therapy to tumors using the Bragg peak effect. An energy degrader plays a vital role at a cyclotron-based proton therapy
Energy degrader facility, as it provides a rapid, reliable, and reproducible method of setting the appropriate beam energy for
Beam loss
radiotherapy. However, the protons undergo nuclear interactions with the matter in the degrader, leading to
Secondary particles
significant secondary particles causing a large ambient radiation dose nearby, creating severe risks for the
Radiation shielding
facility operation. This study investigated the beam loss mechanism and the secondary particle generation
in a B4 C/graphite composite (BGC) energy degrader. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to ensure the
shielding design’s reliability. Calculations showed that the BGC degrader had a higher beam transmission
efficiency than a pure graphite degrader, while the secondary neutron yield was higher. An optimum shielding
configuration can significantly reduce the radiation dose to an acceptable level for sensitive devices and
maintenance staff.

1. Introduction degraders. However, the toxicity of Be and the hardness of B4 C limit

A proton therapy facility (PTF) is under construction at Hua-zhong
University of Science and Technology (HUST-PTF). It has two gantry
treatment rooms and one fixed beamline treatment room. The layout
of HUST-PTF is shown in Fig. 1. The key parameters are listed in
Table 1. The cyclotron produces a fixed beam energy of 250 MeV,
and the energy shall be decreased to 70–238 MeV according to the
treatment requirements [1,2]. Thus, the degrader downstream has a
critical role in the energy modulation process. However, the main
drawbacks of introducing an energy degrader are the large beam loss
and the consequent secondary particles, which can damage nearby
devices. There are two approaches to reducing the various radiation
levels: reducing the secondary particle production or optimizing the
radiation shielding structures.
Energy degraders with high beam transmission efficiency are nec-
essary to minimize beam loss and to reduce secondary particles. Thus,
considerable research has been devoted to studying degraders’ material
properties, including graphite, beryllium, and boron carbide [3–5].
Graphite degraders are widely used because of their low cost, but
their transmission efficiency is relatively low. Benefitting from a lower
atomic number and a higher density, beryllium or boron carbide de-
graders can achieve a higher transmission efficiency than graphite
their applications in PTFs. We studied a hybrid degrader using com-
posite B4 C and graphite, which combine excellent energy degradation
and processability [6]. The hybrid degrader’s performance depends on
the ratio of composite ingredients, which must be further studied.
Radiation safety is a critical issue for maintenance staff and sensitive
devices nearby, such as motors and vacuum seal rings. The secondary
particles produced during the energy-degrading process create a severe
radiation field nearby. A shielding box is needed to enclose the overall
energy degrader system to prevent the radiation emitting out [7]. How-
ever, secondary high-energy neutrons and the resulting severe radiation
are also very harmful to the sensitive devices inside the degrader
system, which poses a critical challenge for radiation shielding design.
Material activation is also a major concern because the decay ra-
diation remains even after the facility is shut down, creating risks for
maintenance personnel. The Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) has experi-
mentally studied the activation of B4 C material with a 100 nA proton
beam irradiated for 1 hour [5]. We investigated the decay radiation in
a BGC degrader under more realistic conditions to guarantee radiation
safety, which assumed the degrader was irradiated by a 500 nA proton
beam for 100 days.

✩ Work supported by The National Key Research and Development Program of China with grant No. 2016YFC0105309, and by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (11775087).
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kjfan@hust.edu.cn (K. Fan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2021.165127
Received 17 September 2020; Received in revised form 29 January 2021; Accepted 3 February 2021
Available online 8 February 2021
0168-9002/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Z. Mei, K. Fan, Z. Liang et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127

Table 1 Table 2
Main parameters of HUST-PTF. The hole radii of collimators.
Parameter Value Object Material R𝑖𝑛 (mm) R𝑜𝑢𝑡 (mm)
Extraction beam energy 250 MeV Col#1 Copper 3.5 4.7
Max. beam current 500 nA Col#2 Graphite 6.5 12.5
Clinical beam energy 70–238 MeV Col#3 Copper 5.5 6.1
Clinical beam current 0.5–5 nA
Beam momentum dispersion ±0.5%
Rms emittance 5𝜋 mm⋅mrad
Max. clinical dose rate 3 Gy/L/min
2.1. Physical process and simulation method
Field size 300 mm × 300 mm

Protons experience ionization and multiple Coulomb scattering

when passing through the energy degrader and release their energy,
which is expressed by the Bethe–Bloch formula Eq. (1) [8]:

𝑑𝐸 𝑍 𝑧2 2𝑚 𝑐 2 𝛾 2 𝛽 2 𝛿
− = 4𝜋𝑁𝑎 𝑟2𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑐 2 ( )( )[ln( 𝑒 ) − 𝛽2 − ] (1)
𝜌𝑑𝑥 𝐴 𝛽2 𝐼 2
where 𝜌 is the degrader’s material density, 𝛽 is the protons’ relative
velocity, and 𝛿/2 is the density correction term, which was neglected
in this study as the energy was much lower than 1 GeV.
After passing a thin degrader, the RMS emittance 𝜀𝑑𝑒𝑔 increases
observably due to the multiple Coulomb scattering, which is expressed
by Eq. (2) [9]:

𝜀𝑑𝑒𝑔 2 = 𝜀0 2 + (𝛽𝜃0 )2 (2)

Fig. 1. The layout of HUST-PTF. Units: mm.
where 𝛽 represents the beam Twiss parameter, and 𝜃0 is the RMS
multiple scattering angle. The contribution 𝜃0 positively correlates with
the degrader’s overlap thickness but negatively correlates with the
material’s radiation length 𝐿0 , which is defined by Eqs. (3) and (4) [9],
respectively:
√
13.6𝑧 𝐿 𝐿
𝜃0 = ⋅ [1 + 0.038 ln( )] (3)
𝑣𝑝 𝐿0 𝐿0
𝐴 716.4
𝐿0 = √ g∕cm2 (4)
𝑍 (𝑍 + 1) ln(287∕ 𝑍)
Fig. 2. The layout of the degrader system. Units: mm.

Eqs. (1)–(4) demonstrate the following conclusions:

This paper evaluates the performance of the new hybrid degrader
and considers its radiation shielding design. In Section 2, the beam loss
and the secondary particle yield from the BGC degrader with different
boron contents are discussed. In Section 3, the radiation shielding
design to protect vulnerable devices and to reduce personnel exposure
during maintenance is described. A high-accuracy energy degrader
model was developed that enabled us to better understand the de-
grader’s proton beam behavior and to precisely predict the generation
of different particles.
2. Beam loss and secondary particle yield
The layout of the energy degrader system in HUST-PTF is shown
in Fig. 2. It contains a multiple-wedge degrader block and three beam
collimators. The proton energy is adjusted by changing the overlap
thickness of the multiple degrader wedges. However, multiple-Coulomb
scattering can be highly deleterious to the transmitted beam emittance.
Two copper collimators and a graphite collimator are employed down-
stream to stop undesirable proton beams and confine the transmitted
beam emittance to an acceptable level. More than 75% of the incident
protons are lost, and significant undesired secondary particles are then
generated during the energy degradation and the beam collimation
process. Therefore, an energy degrader’s crucial design tasks are to
improve the beam transmission and to reduce the various secondary
particles generation. The hole radii of the three collimators are shown
in Table 2.
(1) Material with a higher density 𝜌 has a larger stopping ability that
can shorten the degrader length, which helps minimize the multiple
scattering angle 𝜃0 and suppresses the beam emittance growth.
(2) Material with a lower atomic number Z has a longer radiation
length 𝐿0 , which leads to a smaller multiple scattering angle 𝜃0
and subsequently reduces the beam emittance growth.
Based on these conclusions, a low Z material with a high density is
preferable for high-performance degraders. BGC material degraders are
expected to have a better performance than pure graphite degraders.
However, boron material has a larger reaction cross-section with pro-
tons and can generate more secondary particles, especially secondary
neutrons, which increase the risks of activation and radiation damage.
Therefore, one crucial task is to optimize the boron content in the BGC
material to improve the transmission efficiency while maintaining a
lower radiation dose.
We used the Geant4 codes to optimize the transmission efficiency
and the secondary particle yield. The G4EmStandardPhysics_option3
model was employed to emulate the photon transport and to calculate
the particles’ energy deposition [10]. In contrast, the G4NeutronHP
model handled the neutron yield and interactions with nuclei [10]. The
QGSP_BIC model managed the hadronic interactions [10].
The initial incident proton beam energy was 250 MeV and the beam
current was 500 nA. The proton beam was shot into the degrader with a
3.333 mrad angular spread and 0.5% energy spread. The proton beam’s
spatial spread in the emitting plane followed a Gaussian distribution,
and the beam radius was 1.552 mm. The simulations were performed
with 107 primary protons to acquire more precise results.

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Z. Mei, K. Fan, Z. Liang et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127

Table 3
The main performance parameters of BGC degrader.
Material Boron content (%) Density (g/cm3 ) Maximum overlap
thickness (mm)
BGC0 0 1.85 205.5
BGC1 10 1.88 203.0
BGC2 20 1.93 199.5
BGC3 30 1.98 195.5
BGC4 40 2.03 192.0

Fig. 4. Secondary particle yield from the BGC0 degrader and the three collimators.
The solid lines express the neutron yield average by the incident protons. The dotted
lines express the gamma yield average by the incident protons.

decreases as the output energy increases because the proton beam

Fig. 3. Beam transmission efficiency comparison after the collimator #3 in the BGC
degrader system with different boron contents. The solid lines express the transmissions’
improvement of BGC1-4 compared to BGC0 at the collimator #3’s exit. The dotted line
expresses the transmission after the collimator #3 in the BGC0 degrader system.
2.2. Beam transmission efficiency
Most protons have to be abandoned after passing through a degrader
because their divergence is too high for clinical applications. Therefore,
minimizing the degrader’s beam emittance growth can reduce the beam
loss at the downstream collimators. Since the degrader’s transmission
remains constant at a given output energy, the total beam transmission
efficiency can be improved by increasing the downstream collimators’
transmission. The mixing ratio of ingredients (𝐵4 𝐶 and graphite) in the
BGC material determines the average atomic number and density that
influences the beam emittance growth. Several BGC degrader schemes
with different boron contents, as shown in Table 3, have been studied
for optimization. The overlap thickness of the degrader wedges reaches
maximum when degrading the beam energy to 70 MeV. The BGC0
material represents pure graphite.
Fig. 3 compares the beam transmission efficiency with different
boron contents in the BGC degrader system at the collimator #3’s exit.
The lower the output energy, the longer the beam path in the
degrader and the higher the beam emittance growth, which results in
lower beam transmission efficiencies.
The BGC degraders with higher boron contents can observably
improve the beam transmission efficiency, especially at lower output
energies. For example, a BGC degrader with 40% boron content will in-
crease the beam transmission efficiency by 15.9% at 70 MeV compared
to a pure graphite degrader.
2.3. Secondary particle yield
Abundant secondary particles, including electrons, neutrons, and
gamma particles, are generated during energy degradation and beam
collimation, which will cause material activation and bring about radi-
ation damage to equipment. Controlling the secondary particle produc-
tion is critical for the degrader’s reliable service life.
Fig. 4 displays the secondary particle yield from the BGC0 degrader
and the three collimators. The degrader’s neutron yield significantly
undergoes a short path in the degrader. However, the higher output
proton beam energy and larger reaction cross-section of copper cause
more neutron yield from the collimators #1 and #3. Notably, the copper
collimator #1 contributes the most neutron yield when the output beam
energy is between 150 MeV and 210 MeV. The gamma production in
the degrader–collimator system has a similar tendency with neutron
production.
The boron content in the BGC degrader affects the secondary par-
ticle generation, which must be further optimized. These calculations
were conducted as the beam energy degraded to 70 MeV, where the
longest beam path and largest beam loss appeared.
An exact structural model of the degrader system containing all the
sensitive devices was produced to study the secondary particle yield
as shown in Fig. 5. Two BGC wedges followed by two collimators
were installed in an aluminum vacuum chamber, which was sealed
by five O-rings and two rectangular rings. The collimator #3 was
located downstream from the degrader’s vacuum chamber. The two
BGC wedges were driven by two stepper motors located 50 cm away
from the vacuum chamber on both sides. As the electronic motors and
vacuum seal rings were the most vulnerable, the main concern was
their suffering from the radiation dose.
The energy spectra of generated neutrons and gamma rays when
degrading the beam energy to 70 MeV are shown in Fig. 6. Most of
the secondary particles were distributed in the lower energy region.
A BGC degrader with a higher boron content could cause higher
secondary neutron yield in the high-energy region but has little effect
on the generation of gamma rays. Furthermore, the boron content has
little influence on the dominant low-energy neutron production, which
means that the higher boron content only slightly increases the total
neutron yield.
Fig. 7 compares the total secondary particle production and the
radiation dose suffered by sensitive devices between different boron
contents. The total neutron production increased by approximately 8%
when the boron content in the BGC degrader rose from 0 to 40%, while
the total gamma production had a negligible drop. The radiation dose
to vulnerable devices does not depend on the boron content much if the
boron content ratio less than 20%. However, when the ratio exceeds
20%, the motor’s radiation dose will rapidly increase. Therefore, for
radiation protection, the boron content of a BGC degrader should not
exceed 20%.
Higher boron content in a BGC degrader will promote the beam
transmission efficiency and the total secondary neutron yield. A com-
promise must be made between the beam transmission efficiency and
radiation safety, which sets the BGC degrader’s boron content at 20%.

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Z. Mei, K. Fan, Z. Liang et al.
Fig. 5. The structural calculation model of the degrader system.
Fig. 6. Secondary particle yield from the BGC degrader system with different boron
contents when degrading the beam energy to 70 MeV. (a) Neutron yield. (b) Gamma
yield. (color online).
3. Radiation shielding design
Radiation shielding is imperative, as radiation resulting from abun-
dant secondary particles is harmful to sensitive devices and mainte-
nance staff near degrader systems. Severely irradiated doses may ruin
the vacuum rubber seal rings by cross-linking the polymer’s molecular
chain, which decreases the seal rings’ performance [11]. Electronic
components in motors are susceptible to irradiated doses, particularly
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Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127
Fig. 7. Comparison of total secondary particle production, radiation doses and fluences
between different boron contents and BGC0.
high-energy neutrons, due to ionization and displacement damage of
semiconductor components [12,13]. Moreover, the decay radiation
dose caused by the activation materials is detrimental to the mainte-
nance staff’s health. Therefore, the primary purposes of the degrader’s
radiation shielding design in the HUST-PTF are to (1) ensure that the
service life of the vacuum seal rings and motors exceeds 15,000 h by
decreasing the prompt radiation, and (2) protect the maintenance staff
by reducing the residual radiation dose rate to less than 10 μSv/h.
3.1. Shielding design considerations
Critical tasks for radiation shielding are reducing the irradiated dose
and the high-energy neutron fluence. Based on the Moyel model, the
radiation dose 𝐻 [μSv/h] of a radiation point source is expressed by
the simple exponential formula in Eq. (5) [14].
1 𝑑𝜌
𝐻 = 𝐽 ⋅ 𝐻0 exp(− ) (5)
𝑟2 𝜆
where 𝐽 [W] and 𝐻0 [(μSv/h)cm2 ∕W] describe the radiation source’s
properties, 𝑟[cm] is the distance away from the source, and 𝑑 [cm],
𝜌 [g/cm3 ], and 𝜆 [g/cm2 ] represent the shielding material’s thick-
ness, density, and attenuation length, respectively. According to this
equation, there are three approaches to attenuate undesirable doses: re-
ducing the radiation source’s terms, increasing the shielding thickness,
and using high-density and low-radiation-attenuation-length material.
Since neutrons are uncharged and can easily pass through dense
materials, effectively shielding high-energy neutrons is a complicated
process that can be divided into three steps: reduce the neutrons’ energy
using inelastic scattering, further moderate intermediate neutrons by
elastic scattering, and capture thermal neutrons. Notably, the neutron
capture process produces secondary 𝛾-rays that should also be shielded.
The shielding of the degrader system in HUST-PTF is designed as
shown in Fig. 8. It consists of five shielding plates on each side of the
vacuum chamber. Most secondary particles are generated from the BGC
degrader and the two copper collimators as demonstrated in Fig. 4.
Because the collimator #3 only generates abundant neutrons in a higher
output beam energy range, the shielding plate’s width is set to 50 cm
to screen neutrons generated from the degrader and the collimator #1.
The overall thickness of the five shielding plates is 30 cm by utilizing
the confined interspace as much as possible. The distance between the
shielding plates #2 and #3 should exceed 24 cm to ensure the wedges’
movement ranges.
The shielding plates consist of three layers filled with different
materials to effectively screen high-energy neutrons as shown in Fig. 8.
The inner layer uses high atomic number materials (lead alloy, PbSn, or
PbZn) to reflect fast neutrons and block emission 𝛾-rays. Materials rich
Z. Mei, K. Fan, Z. Liang et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127

Fig. 8. Shielding configuration of the degrader system. The shielding plate #1, #2 and
#3 compose the inner layer, the shielding plate #4 is the middle layer, and the shielding
plate #5 is the outer layer. Units: cm.
Fig. 9. The absorption dose rate of vacuum seal rings. (color online).

Table 4
in hydrogen elements, such as paraffin, polyethylene (POLY), or boron- The radiation safety service life of rubber samples.
containing poly-ethylene (BPOLY), can be used to produce the middle Material Radiation resistance Maximum dose rate Radiation safety
layer to further moderate intermediate neutrons and capture thermal (Gy) (Gy/h) service life (h)
neutrons. The outer layer uses lead alloy to mask and capture secondary Neoprene 104 276.5 ± 0.5 3.62 × 101
emission photons from neutron capture. Lead alloy shielding can be NBR 105 307.6 ± 0.6 3.25 × 102
activated by interactions with neutrons, which should be carefully PU 107 306.8 ± 0.6 3.26 × 104
Natural 106 334.8 ± 0.7 2.99 × 103
analyzed. Different shielding plate configurations must be optimized to
EPDM 107 349.6 ± 0.7 2.86 × 104
minimize the irradiated doses and high-energy neutron fluence of the
motors.
The seal rings are critical for the degrader’s vacuum. Since the Table 5
A list of shielding plate combinations.
aluminum chamber is not hard enough to mount metal seal rings,
rubber materials are used because of their applicability and low cost. Shielding layer thickness
Label
Preventing rubber seal ring failure caused by radiation is vital to Inner Middle Outer
ensure that the degrader works properly. However, there is no sufficient PbZn-BPOLY-PbZn #1 10 cm 10 cm 10 cm
space inside the vacuum chamber for installing shielding plates. Thus, PbZn-BPOLY-PbZn #2 10 cm 15 cm 5 cm
PbZn-BPOLY-PbZn #3 15 cm 10 cm 5 cm
high radiation-resistant material is necessary to prolong the seal rings’ PbSn-BPOLY-PbSn 15 cm 10 cm 5 cm
lifetimes. PbZn-POLY-PbZn 15 cm 10 cm 5 cm
The shielding plates can reduce the decay radiation doses to the All-BPOLY Overall 30 cm
maintenance staff. The cooling time also has an essential impact on
the decay radiation doses, which must be precisely investigated to
guarantee the maintenance staff’s radiation safety.
The absorption doses of seal rings varied due to the location and
material. The seal ring #5 was exposed to the maximum dose of more
3.2. Radiation simulation than 300 Gy/h due to its location close to the collimator #1, where the
highest beam loss occurred. The five materials had distinct radiation
FLUKA codes were used to conduct the radiation shielding simu- resistance properties and lifetimes as listed in Table 4. The Neoprene
lation of the degrader. The PRECISIO model in FLUKA was employed had the lowest absorption dose, and the PU rubber was the best seal
to study the processes of particle–matter interactions in the degrader ring material owing to its excellent performance.
and managed the multiple scattering, inelastic scattering, and electro-
magnetic processes [15]. Due to the highly complex radiation field 3.2.2. Irradiated doses and neutron fluence of motors
simulation, the primary events were set to 1 × 109 to balance the Shielding high-energy neutrons is challenging due to their long pen-
simulation’s precision and computing time. The material activation and etration depths and high activation capability. The 3-layer composite
the decay of the activated nuclei can cause severe residual radiation. shielding plate with different material combinations listed in Table 5
FLUKA offers a dedicated database based on the NNNC model that was studied to optimize the shielding efficiency. Notably, the shielding
thoroughly simulates decay emissions. Residual radiation was studied plates #1, #2, and #5 were 5 cm thick due to the installation space’s
by assuming several hours for cooling after 500 nA proton beam constraints, but the shielding plates #3 and #4 had a 15 cm thick space
for different shielding combinations.
irradiation for 100 days.
Fig. 10 compares the resulting radiation doses with different shield-
ing configurations, which were normalized by the non-shielding results.
3.2.1. Irradiated doses of vacuum seal rings The PbZn-BPOLY-PbZn #3 shielding combination had the best perfor-
The seal rings are irradiated by secondary particles when the de- mance in the absorption dose and photon fluence, while the neutron
grader system is active. When the dose accumulated in the rubber fluence was higher than the ALL-BPOLY shielding due to the BPOLY
seal exceeds its radiation resistance, the rubber’s performance will material’s thermal neutron capture ability. However, the fast neutron
deteriorate. Thus, the dose rate and total exposure time of the seal ring (> 1 MeV) fluence, which is very hazardous for electronic devices, was
determine its total absorption dose, which affects its radiation safety dramatically suppressed after the two shielding configurations were
service life. In this study, different rubber materials (Neoprene, NBR, adopted.
PU, EPDM, and natural rubber) were compared with the absorbed dose For the radiation safety of electronic components in motor systems,
rate. The results are shown in Fig. 9. the accumulated absorption dose should not exceed 1 × 103 Gy and the

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Z. Mei, K. Fan, Z. Liang et al. Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127

Table 6
The activity of dominant radio-nuclei after 12 h of cooling.
Activity (Bq)
Isotope
Without shielding With shielding
H-3 (1.44 ± 0.01) × 109 (1.44 ± 0.01) × 109
Be-7 (5.47 ± 0.01) × 1010 (5.47 ± 0.01) × 1010
Na-22 (1.80 ± 0.01) × 108 (1.78 ± 0.01) × 108
Na-24 (5.10 ± 0.01) × 109 (5.17 ± 0.02) × 109
V-48 (2.05 ± 0.01) × 108 (1.96 ± 0.03) × 108
V-49 (1.11 ± 0.02) × 108 (1.06 ± 0.01) × 108
Cr-51 (1.68 ± 0.01) × 109 (1.58 ± 0.01) × 109
Mn-52 (2.51 ± 0.03) × 108 (2.46 ± 0.02) × 108
Mn-54 (4.96 ± 0.02) × 108 (4.68 ± 0.02) × 108
Fe-55 (3.86 ± 0.01) × 108 (3.60 ± 0.01) × 108
Co-56 (6.55 ± 0.03) × 108 (6.66 ± 0.05) × 108
Co-57 (1.18 ± 0.01) × 109 (1.20 ± 0.01) × 109
Co-58 (3.92 ± 0.01) × 109 (4.03 ± 0.01) × 109
Ni-57 (1.70 ± 0.02) × 108 (1.73 ± 0.02) × 108
Fig. 10. The radiation doses and fluences of motors with different shielding con- Cu-61 (9.02 ± 0.01) × 108 (9.36 ± 0.02) × 108
figurations. The labels on the vertical axis describe the radiation quantities of the Cu-62 (7.05 ± 0.02) × 108 (7.71 ± 0.04) × 108
motors. They are the motors’ fast neutron fluence, photon fluence, neutron fluence, and Cu-64 (5.92 ± 0.01) × 109 (7.20 ± 0.02) × 109
absorption dose, respectively. The ratio of these radiation quantities under different Cu-67 ∖ (1.84 ± 0.03) × 108
shield configurations compared to non-shielding are shown on the horizontal axis. Zn-62 (6.93 ± 0.02) × 108 (7.57 ± 0.04) × 108
(color online). Zn-65 (3.36 ± 0.01) × 108 (1.15 ± 0.01) × 109
Zn-69 ∖ (1.28 ± 0.01) × 108
Hg-197 ∖ (1.91 ± 0.02) × 108
Tl-198 ∖ (1.30 ± 0.02) × 108
accumulated fast neutron fluence should be limited to Tl-199 ∖ (2.40 ± 0.02) × 108
1 × 1014 cm−2 [13,16]. In this design, the fast neutron fluence rate was Tl-200 ∖ (1.09 ± 0.01) × 109
reduced to (4.64 ± 0.06) × 109 cm−2 /h and the radiation dose rate was Tl-201 ∖ (1.57 ± 0.01) × 109
attenuated to (3.28 ± 0.07) × 10−2 Gy/h after the PbZn-BPOLY-PbZn #3 Tl-202 ∖ (4.15 ± 0.04) × 108
Pb-200 ∖ (6.91 ± 0.03) × 108
shielding was mounted. Therefore, the motor systems’ radiation safety
Pb-201 ∖ (5.63 ± 0.03) × 108
service lifetimes can last over 2.1 × 104 h, which satisfies the demand Pb-203 ∖ (3.00 ± 0.01) × 109
for operation reliability of the proton therapy facility.

3.2.3. Residual radiation doses

Due to the materials’ activation and the decay of the activated nuclei
in the degrader–collimator system, residual radiation remains after the
beam is switched off, which can be harmful to maintenance personnel.
To examine the cooling time’s effects on the residual radiation doses,
eight cooling intervals (36 s, 360 s, 1 h, 4 h, 12 h, 24 h, 72 h, and
7 days) were set to compare the effects. The residual doses around
the degrader that attenuated with time are shown in Fig. 11. The
highest residual dose damping rate occurred at 1 h in both cases (w/o
shielding) because the generated radio-nuclei were mainly short half-
life activated nuclei, such as C-11, C-10, B-8, and He-6. However, the
residual dose remained almost invariable after 12 h, which indicated
that some long half-life radio-nuclei were present, such as H-3 and Be-7.
The activity of dominant radio-nuclei in the degrader-collima-tor
system after 12 h of cooling is listed in Table 6. Notably, after introduc-
ing the lead alloy shielding, the neutrons activated a mass of lead and
then generated a number of activated nuclei, such as Pb-200, Pb-201,
Pb-203, Tl-201, and Hg-197 as Table 6 shows.
Similar simulations of boron carbide degrader activity have also
been performed in PSI with a 100 nA proton current irradiating for
1 h [5]. In our simulations, the activity of nuclei with a short half-
life was almost 5 times less than the PSI results, which agreed with
the beam current ratio in the two simulations. However, due to the
sufficiently long irradiation time and the many activation reactions

Fig. 11. Residual radiation doses around the degrader over time. The top images show the results without shielding and the bottom images show the results with shielding. The
proton beam is shot along +Z direction. The X-Y plane is the transverse plane of the beam direction. (color online).

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Z. Mei, K. Fan, Z. Liang et al.
Fig. 12. Residual dose rate near the motor as a function of the time with and without
shielding. The results were obtained by including all of the activated nuclei in the
degrader–collimator system.
considered in this study, the activity of the long half-life nuclei was
far greater than the PSI results.
Although the shielding material for screening secondary particles
was activated simultaneously, it still had an impressive effect on re-
ducing the residual radiation doses beyond the shielding. This was
because the dominant activation was generated inside the degrader–
collimator system. Fig. 12 compares the residual dose rate near the
motor with and without shielding. The residual dose rate decreased
from (3.03 ± 0.04) × 103 μSv/h to (67.9 ± 0.9) μSv/h after 4 h of
cooling, which demonstrated the shielding’s importance for screening
beta and gamma radiation from the activated nuclei decaying in the
degrader and collimators.
Since the installation space restricted the thickness of shielding
plates, the residual dose rate near the motor after 24 h of decay
remained (46.2 ± 0.8) μSv/h, which exceeded the regular safe limit of
10 μSv/h. Therefore, the degrader’s maintenance must be rigorously
restricted to a very short time, preferably less than 13 min every
time, to guarantee that the annual radiation dose does not exceed the
constraint value of 20 mSv/annual [17,18]. Furthermore, cooling for
a longer time, using a remote manipulator, or employing additional
removable shielding may be better for the degrader’s maintenance.
4. Summary
At cyclotron-based proton therapy facilities, crucial design tasks for
energy degraders include improving the beam transmission efficiency
and controlling the severe radiation caused by secondary particles. This
study investigated the boron content’s effect on beam loss and various
secondary particle generation in a novel B4 C/graphite composite (BGC)
energy degrader. An optimum shielding configuration is introduced to
effectively suppress the radiation. The conclusions are summarized as
follows:
(1) BGC degraders have high transmission efficiency but can generate
more secondary particles, leading to severe radiation. A com-
promise between the transmission efficiency and radiation safety
requires the boron content of BGC composite should not exceed
20%.
(2) PU rubber material seal rings with a sufficiently long radiation
safety service lifetime can be used in the degrader’s vacuum cham-
ber even in the presence of severe radiation.
(3) A composite shielding plate with an optimum combination of
PbZn and boron-containing polyethylene can effectively reduce
the prompt and residual radiation, even with restrictions on the
thickness.
Nuclear Inst. and Methods in Physics Research, A 995 (2021) 165127
The transmission efficiency of a 20% boron content BGC degrader
will increase by only 6% compared with a pure graphite degrader.
However, a higher transmission due to an increased boron concentra-
tion may allow extra shielding, which should be considered in future
research.
The simulation showed that with the shielding, the most vulnerable
driven motor system had a service life longer than 2.1 × 104 h even
under the severe radiation resulted by the maximal energy-degradation
(from 250 MeV to 70 MeV) and the beam-collimation. However, the
residual radiation remained after the 500 nA proton beam was switched
off, and the dose rate near the motor still exceeded the regular safe limit
even after 24 h of cooling. Further suppression should be introduced for
the safety of maintenance staff in the future.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Zhiyuan Mei: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, For-
mal analysis, Writing - original draft. Kuanjun Fan: Writing - review
& editing, Supervision. Zhikai Liang: Software, Investigation. Jinfeng
Yang: Visualization. Mingwu Fan: Supervision.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
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