Normalization of dose and fluence in USRBIN

Quote from FLUKA manual

          5) Energy deposition will be expressed in GeV per cm3 per unit primary
             weight. Doses will be expressed in GeV/g per unit primary weight. To
             obtain dose in Gy, multiply GeV/g by 1.602176462E-7

           8) Fluence will be expressed in particles/cm2 per unit primary weight.

         13) The results from USRBIN are normalised per unit volume and per unit
             primary weight, except for region binnings and special user-defined
             binnings, which are normalised per unit primary weight only, for
             DPA, which are given as number of displacements per atom per unit
             primary weight, averaged over the bin volume, and for dose
             equivalent, expressed as pSv per unit primary weight.

So I am basically wondering if dose and fluence are normalised by unit volume or not.
The absorbed dose in XYZ binning, in my simulation, seems not to be normalised
per unit value (i.e., when I multiply the dose by the total primary weight
I get the expected point dose (from the plan). However, when I look at absorbed
dose in region binning, the value is smaller, and only if I divide it by the volume of
the region, does it make sense. But that seems to be against what I interpret
from the manual, can anyone clarify? How do I have to take into account
the volume of the region when I compare results from different binning styles?

Thanks,

With best regards,
Daniel Sanchez Parcerisa

Siemens AG
Healthcare Sector
Imaging & Therapy Division
H IM PT OP TI
Hofmannstr. 26
91052 Erlangen, Germany
mailto:daniel.sanchezparcerisa_at_siemens.com
Received on Thu Sep 22 2011 - 14:29:03 CEST