Generating Results

Two approaches are available for calculating dose rates once a ZapMeNot model has been constructed.

Basic Method

The basic approach is demonstrated in the following code block. It is assumed that a model myModel has already been constructed with an appropriate source and detector. The method calculate_exposure returns the exposure in mR/hr.

# run an existing model
result = myModel.calculate_exposure()

Getting Details

A more detailed exposure report can be generated with the generate_summary method. generate_summary returns a “list of lists” (think of a group of lists). The lists include, in order of appearance, the photon energy groups, the photon appearance in each group (photons/sec), the total energy flux by group (MeV/sec), total uncollided exposure by energy group (mR/hr), and total exposure by energy group (mR/hr). These lists can be easily accessed in the following manner:

# generate a summary from an existing model
(energy_groups, intensities, energy_flux,
    uncollided_exposure, exposure) = myModel.generate_summary()

This provides access to the data for further processing. Alternatively, Python packages such as Pandas can provide powerful data analysis tools that can be used with the results of the generate_summary method.

For example, adding the following line will import the Pandas package:

import pandas as pd

The following code would generate a formatted table from the output summary:

# generate a formatted summary from an existing model
summary = myModel.generate_summary()
df = pd.DataFrame(summary, columns = ['MeV',
                                      'photons/sec',
                                      'Uncollided MeV/cm2/sec',
                                      'Uncollided mR/hr',
                                      'Collided mR/hr'])
print(df)

A model containing an Ar-41 source with two photons might result in the following output:

       MeV   photons/sec  Uncollided MeV/cm2/sec  Uncollided mR/hr  Collided mR/hr
0  1.29364  2.974800e+10             1371.119906          2.382878       15.887568
1  1.67700  1.546896e+07                1.768057          0.002878        0.015251