Market forces are increasingly pushing manufacturers of polymer-based medical devices and biopharmaceutical production components to diversify their options for sterilization methods. This diversification naturally includes the technically mature, but underutilized, options of X-ray and electron beam (E-beam). To fill the data, education, and tool gaps that impede this progress, an international collaborative group, named Team Nablo, was formed in 2018. Team Nablo is funded by the Office of Radiological Security (ORS), within the United States National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). One of the tool gaps identified was dose simulation software that was much simpler to learn and use, and provided results much faster, than existing software packages. The answer to this need was a two-year project to develop the PUFFIn (Penelope User Friendly Fast Interface) software toolkit.

PUFFIn was developed as an educational and scoping analysis tool that could be used by non-experts to quickly determine the most efficient product and/or packaging designs.  It was developed mainly for applications involving irradiation of polymer-based medical products by cobalt-60 gamma-rays, X-rays or electron beam (E-beam). It can be used to compare dose distributions for the various types of radiation fields, including the locations and values for dose maxima and minima.

This presentation summarizes the progress on the latest 2D and 3D versions of PUFFIn, including 1) The addition of features that allow the use of complex 3D geometry CAD and DICOM data sets (Computer Aided Design / X-Ray Tomography), and 2) The benchmark measurements performed to validate the accuracy and speed of the software.