FASTRAD is a tool dedicated to the calculation of radiation effects (Dose and Displacement Damage) on electronics. The tool includes a 3d modelling interface with all the capabilities required for the representation of any system. Application areas include: high energy physics and nuclear experiments, medical, accelerator and space physics studies. The software is used by radiation engineers around the world.
History
FASTRAD is a radiation tool dedicated to the analysis and design of radiation sensitive systems. The project was created in 1999 and has constantly been improved since. This software can be applied to any radiation related field.
The radiation hardness assurance of satellite manufacturers has been continuously improved over the last decade. The optimization of space systems in terms of either mechanical design to increase the ratio power/mass, or miniaturization of electronic devices tends to increase the sensitivity of those systems to the space radiation environment. In order to mitigate the impact on the radiation hardness process, the first solution is to replace the rough shielding analysis by an accurate estimate of the real radiation constraint on the system. This corresponds to the solution provided by FASTRAD for the deposited dose estimate.
The main goal of the software is to reduce the margins stemming from a conservative approach of estimating radiation analysis, while reducing the cycle time of mechanical design changes for shielding optimization. In some cases, it can be used to justify the use of non rad-hard parts and save cost and planning for space program equipment. Its features allow use of CAD import files, and/or 3D viewing and geometry construction.
For space applications, this software can consider a complete satellite model from the platform structure down to the electronic components.
Radiation CAD interface
This software is dedicated to engineers who do not necessarily have an extensive experience in CAD applications. This user-friendly interface was developed to construct 3D radiation models using simple functions.
The main CAD capabilities of the tool are: Creation of Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone and triangular Prism Insertion of complex 3D geometries coming from STEP or IGES format files Modelling tool set (clipping plane, 2D projection, measurement tool, colors, view shot,…)
The core of the software is the radiation 3D modeler. The goal of the engine is to make a realistic model of any mechanical design including material properties. The main part of the interface is devoted to the display window where the user can manipulate the geometry.
The 3D solids can be defined either by using the component toolbar or by importing them from other 3rd party software (CATIA, Pro/Engineer…) with the standard STEP or IGES format. The Open Cascade library included in FASTRAD provides advanced visualization capabilities like cut operations, complex shape management, and STEP and IGES exchange format modules. The advanced STEP module allows you to import the hierarchy, name and color information. The full 3D designer model is then managed by FASTRAD (visualization, radiation calculation, post-processing). This software easily handles complex geometry and manages different length scales in the same model from the nanometer to 1024km.
A key element related to the radiation applications is the materials management. A dedicated user-friendly interface allows you to set the material properties of each solid of the 3D model, such as the density and the mass ratio of each element of the (compound) material by determining its chemical composition (see Fig. 1.). The list of predefined materials can be easily extended by the user.
Another functionality is the detectors positioning. These detectors can be placed at any location in the model. In this way, radiation effects can be estimated at any point of the 3D model using a Monte Carlo algorithm for a fine calculation of energy deposition by particle-matter interaction (see “Dose calculation and shielding” below), or for a ray-tracing approach.
Moreover, the use of this software is compliant to late design changes and/or equipment re-use. For design changes, only the new files can be simply imported and/or modified in Fastrad. The processing of the sectorial analysis can then take place. Direct calculation of shielding efficiency using the user-friendly graphical interface can be performed and direct access to the masses of the different parts is possible to achieve shielding/mass increase trade-off. For equipment re-use, only the radiation environment data that is provided for deposited dose calculations has to be changed.