Interactive visual intervention planning in particle accelerator environments with ionizing radiation ; Planification visuelle et interactive d'interventions dans des environnements d'accélérateur de particules émettant des rayonnements ionisants

Radiation is omnipresent. It has many interesting applications: in medicine, where it allows curing and diagnosing patients; in communication, where modern communication systems make use of electromagnetic radiation; and in science, where it is used to discover the structure of materials; to name a few. Physically, radiation is a process in which particles or waves travel through any kind of material, usually air. Radiation can be very energetic, in which case it can break the atoms of ordinary matter (ionization). If this is the case, radiation is called ionizing. It is known that ionizing radiation can be far more harmful to living beings than non-ionizing radiation. In this dissertation, we are concerned with ionizing radiation. Naturally occurring ionizing radiation in the form of radioactivity is a most natural phenomenon. Almost everything is radioactive: there is radiation emerging from the soil, it is in the air, and the whole planet is constantly undergoing streams of energetic cosmic radiation. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, we are also able to artificially create radio-active matter. This has opened a lot of interesting technological opportunities, but has also given a tremendous responsibility to humanity, as the nuclear accidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima, and various accidents in the medical world have made clear. This has led to the elaboration of a radiological protection system. In practice, the radiological protection system is mostly implemented using a methodology that is indicated with the acronym ALARA: As Low As Reasonably Achievable. This methodology consists of justifying, optimizing and limiting the radiation dose received. This methodology is applied in conjunction with the legal limits. The word "reasonably" means that the optimization of radiation exposure has to be seen in context. The optimization is constrained by the fact that the positive effects of an operation might surpass the negative effects caused by the radiation. Several industrial and scientific ...