When developing systems that must be hardened to radiation, you want to make sure that
you have just the right amount of shielding. Too much shielding adds expense, complexity and
- of particular concern for aerospace applications - weight. Too little shielding can result in
performance degradation or catastrophic failure.
TopAct is a software tool that bridges the worlds of computer-aided design (CAD) and radiation transport analysis (RTA). Developed following years of research
at the Raytheon Company, TopAct automatically analyzes your mechanical models and refashions
them into high fidelity models that reduces by orders of magnitude the processing time required by MCNP and other RTA codes compared to automated mesh-based methods. The bottom line is that you can vastly improve the quality of the radiation transport analyses you perform- and extend that quality to the shielding system you're designing.
TopAct represents tremendous savings in time and money by providing time-efficient, high fidelity models, and eliminating the need for manual generation of models via combinatorial geometry (CG). TopAct allows designers to use lighter, cost-effective designs with more accessible parts, which provides a better value overall. Based on years of research and development at Raytheon Corporation, TopAct is well-suited for aircraft, satellite and spacecraft analysis, medical imaging, and particle physics applications.
TopAct is currently saving time and money at Raytheon, ISA, and National Laboratories at Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore. TopAct commercial licensees receive two days of on-site training at no additional cost.
Features
- Translates mechanical CAD models for radiation transport code processing
- Accepts native Parasolids and STEP models
- Supports MCNP, TART, ITS, and NOVICE RTA codes
- Documented, high fidelity and efficient CG representations of real-world parts designed in Pro/ENGINEER and other CAD systems
Advantages
- Eliminates manual translation of CAD models for RTA
- Enables a broader set of ratiation-hardened product design configurations, rather than resorting to more shielding
- Shrinks design margin needed for uncertainties in the space environment
- Reduces protective shielding weight and specialty parts normally necessary to ensure hardware survives space-radiation damage
- Provides accurate environmental assessments, enabling lighter and less expensive designs
Benefits
- Saves even an experienced engineer days, weeks, or even months of time preparing CAD models for analysis
- Reduces radiation transport analysis time by orders of magnitude
- Improves quality assurance and configuration management
- Reduces weight requirements, translating to lower payload costs and spacecraft
- Ultimately, enables substantial cost savings in production of radiation transport geometry
Product Information
- TopAct Product Brief
- Rapid High Fidelity Radiation Shielding Analysis: An Enabler for Responsive Space Applications
News
Technical Papers
- "TopAct: Automated Translation from CAD to Combinatorial Geometry", American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting, Washington D.C., November 17, 2004
- "High Fidelity Transport in Complex Geometry Using TopAct(TM)", American Nuclear Society Annual Meeting, Hollywood, FL, June 29, 2011
- "TopAct: Automated Translation from CAD to Combinatorial Geometry for Radiation Transport Analysis", the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space Conference, Long Beach CA, August 30, 2005
TopAct is a registered trademark of The Raytheon Company. The Raytheon Company TopAct software is covered by U.S. patents 7,733,339; 7337,154; and 7,321,364.
