Monte Carlo simulation of cosmic radiation shielding efficiency of low density and small atomic mass number materials

We had performed computer simulations for improving the spacecraft shielding from cosmic radiation in space. It focuses on the evaluation of shielding efficiency of the low density with a small atomic mass number materials subjected to both SPEs and GCRs sources. Then we compared their effectiveness with aluminum which is the main primary metal used in spacecraft. In this study we used liquid hydrogen, water and polyethylene as shielding materials to compare with aluminum. The efficiency of a shield is evaluated by the dose profile within the shield and the amount of dose absorbed by water that we used as a target by using FLUKA which is a well known Monte Carlo transport code. The efficiency comparison is made by fixing the area density of a shielding material. It was found that liquid hydrogen, polyethylene and water outperform aluminum for both Solar Particle Events and Galactic Cosmic Ray.