CARI-6: Radiobiology Services
CARI-6
The CARI-6 computer program, developed at the FAA's Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, calculates the effective dose of galactic cosmic radiation received by an individual (based on an anthropomorphic phantom) on an aircraft flying the shortest route (a geodesic) between any two airports in the world. The program takes into account changes in altitude and geographic location during the course of a flight, as derived from the flight profile entered by the user.
Deviations from the shortest route of up to 200 miles have very little effect on the flight dose. Based on the date (month and year) of the flight, appropriate databases are used to account for effects of changes in the earth's magnetic field and solar activity (heliocentric potentials) on galactic radiation levels in the atmosphere. The program also calculates the effective dose rate from galactic radiation, at any location in the atmosphere at altitudes up 60,000 feet. The program requires MS-DOS and can be run on most personal computers. Of interest to epidemiologists, CARI-6 calculates effective doses and dose rates back to January 1958.
LUIN99 and LUIN2000 contain the theoretical transport code used to generate the databases referenced by CARI-6. These two LUINs are computationally identical (same radiation doses, particle fluxes, etc.). LUIN2000 is more user-friendly as a stand-alone program. Neither code calculates flight doses, only dose rates at individual locations. The transport code has been extensively tested against measurements.