The software program, Automatic Radiotherapy Vault Calculator, is designed to provide quick and accurate calculation of required shielding for radiotherapy vaults. Utilizing values entered by the user and various conditional lookup tables, the program is able to calculate: machine workload, primary barrier thickness, secondary barrier thickness, and the entrance door thickness for shilding considerations of both photons and neutrons generated in the treatment room.
The purpose of this work is to compare the calculations performed by this program to the calculations suggested in the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement’s report 151 for primary beam, scattered beam, and neutron shielding applications. Automatic Radiotherapy Vault Calculator succeeds in providing timely and accurate calculations of required barrier thicknesses and in material conversion calculations for the retrofitting of a previously built vault.