• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권3호
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• pp.949-959
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• 2021

The current study aims to explore the shielding properties of multi-component borate-based glass series. Seven glass-samples with composition of (80-y)H₃BO₃-10ZnO-10Na₂O-yBaO where (y = 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 mol.%) were synthesized by melt-quench method. Various shielding features for photons, neutrons, and protons were determined for all prepared samples. XCOM, Phy-X program, and SRIM code were performed to determine and explain several shielding properties such as equivalent atomic number, exposure build-up factor, specific gamma-ray constants, effective removal cross-section (Σ_R), neutron scattering and absorption, Mass Stopping Power (MSP) and projected range. The energy ranges for photons and protons were 0.015-15 MeV and 0.01-10 MeV, respectively. The mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ) was also determined experimentally by utilizing two radioactive sources (¹⁶⁶Ho and ¹³⁷Cs). Consistent results were obtained between experimental and XCOM values in determining μ/ρ of the new glasses. The addition of BaO to the glass matrix led to enhance the μ/ρ and specific gamma-ray constants of glasses. Whereas the remarkable reductions in Σ_R, MSP, and projected range values were reported with increasing BaO concentrations. The acquired results nominate the use of these glasses in different radiation shielding purposes.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권1호
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• pp.247-256
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• 2024

The glass series modified by tungsten oxide was created using the compounds (75-x) B₂O₃- 10SrCO₃- 8TeO₂- 7ZnO - xWO₃, where x = 0, 1, 5, 10, 22, 27, 34, and 40% mole percentage. A UV-visible spectrophotometer and thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) methods were employed to characterize the specimen's optical and phase transition attributes, respectively. The mass-attenuation coefficient (AC) of all created glasses from BSTZW0 to BSTZ7 was estimated using Geant4 code from 0.05 to 3 MeV and compared to the XCOM software results, with a relative difference of less than 2% between the two results. The increase of WO₃ percentage lead to an increase in the Linear-AC at each studied energy, and this is mainly due to the fact that the higher the percentage of WO₃ in the glass increases its density which causes an increase in the Linear-AC, so an energy of 0.06 MeV, as an example, the values of the Linear-AC was 4.009, 4.509, 5.442, 6812, 8.564, 9.856, 10.999 and 11.628 cm^-1 form BSTZW0 too BSTZW7, respectively. The Half-VL (value layer), Mean-FP (free path), Tenth-VL, and Radiation attenuation performance (RAP) were also calculated for the current BSTZW-glass samples and revealed that BSTZW7 had the best gamma ray attenuation performance at all discussed energies when compared to other studied glass samples.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권8호
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• pp.1792-1797
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• 2020

The shielding characteristics of two concrete blocks, widely used in the building industry in Mexico have been determined. These characteristics include the mass interaction coefficients, the linear attenuation coefficients and the half-value layers. The energy-dispersed X-ray fluorescence shows that the percentage mass content of each atom in the sample, and the atomic volume of the constituent elements of a material, plays an important role in its shielding capabilities. The total linear attenuation coefficients and the half-value layers were analyzed for a set of photon energies related to X-rays for diagnosis and cancer treatment with linear accelerators. Our results show that the concrete blocks have similar photon attenuation coefficients than the Portland concrete and better features than gypsum.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• 제42권3호
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• pp.154-157
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• 2017

Background: Shielding properties of compound or mixture is presented in terms of mass attenuation coefficients using Monte Carlo simulation. Mass attenuation coefficients of cement, gypsum and the mixture of gypsum and $PbCO_3$ has been investigated using monte carlo MCNPX. Materials and Methods: The mass attenuation coefficients of cement, gypsum and the mixture of gypsum and $PbCO_3$ were calculated for photon energies 365.5, 661.6, 1,173.2, and 1,332.5 keV energies. Results and Discussion: The simulated values of mass attenuation coefficients were compared avaialable experimental results, theoretical values by XCOM and found good comparability of the results. Conclusion: Standard simulation geometry used in the present investigation would be very useful for various types of sample for shielding and dosimetry applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권3호
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• pp.647-653
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• 2019

A comprehensive study of photon interaction features has been made for some alloys containing Pd and Ag content to evaluate its possible use as alternative gamma radiations shielding material. The mass attenuation coefficient (${\mu}/{\rho}$) of the present alloys was measured at various photon energies between 81 keV - 1333 keV utilizing HPGe detector. The measured ${\mu}/{\rho}$ values were compared to those of theoretical and computational (MCNPX code) results. The results exhibited that the ${\mu}/{\rho}$ values of the studied alloys are in same line with results of WinXCOM software and MCNPX code results at all energies. Moreover, Pd75/Ag25 alloy sample has the maximum radiation protection efficiency (about 53% at 81 keV) and lowest half value layer, which shows that Pd75/Ag25 has superior gamma radiation shielding performance among the compared other alloys.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권3호
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• pp.853-859
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• 2019

A comprehensive study of photon interaction features has been made for some alloys containing Pd and Ag content to evaluate its possible use as alternative gamma radiations shielding material. The mass attenuation coefficient (${\mu}/{\rho}$) of the present alloys was measured at various photon energies between 81 keV-1333 keV utilizing HPGe detector. The measured ${\mu}/{\rho}$ values were compared to those of theoretical and computational (MCNPX code) results. The results exhibited that the ${\mu}/{\rho}$ values of the studied alloys are in the same line with results of WinXCOM software and MCNPX code results at all energies. Moreover, Pd75/Ag25 alloy sample has the maximum radiation protection efficiency (about 53% at 81 keV) and lowest half value layer, which shows that Pd75/Ag25 has superior gamma radiation shielding performance among the other compared alloys.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제51권3호
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• pp.784-791
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• 2019

In the present study, a series of tungsten austenitic stainless steel alloys have been developed by interchanging the molybdenum in standard SS316 by tungsten. This was done to minimize the long-life residual activation occurred in molybdenum and nickel after decommissioning of the power plant. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the prepared alloys are determined. For the sake of increasing multifunction property of such series of tungsten-based austenitic stainless steel alloys, gamma shielding properties were studied experimentally by means of NaI(Tl) detector and theoretically calculated by using the XCOM program. Moreover, fast neutrons macroscopic removal cross-section been calculated. The obtained combined mechanical, structural and shielding properties indicated that the modified austenitic stainless steel sample containing 1.79% tungsten and 0.64% molybdenum has preferable properties among all other investigated samples in comparison with the standard SS316. These properties nominate this new composition in several nuclear application domains such as, nuclear shielding domain.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제55권4호
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• pp.1585-1590
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• 2023

In this study, halloysite nanoparticles-doped epoxy resin was synthesised using the casting method. The MH-300A density metre revealed that the density of the fabricated composites changed from 1.132 to 1.317 g/cm³ as the halloysite nanoparticle concentration increased. The Fourier transform infrared was recorded for the synthesised composites. Furthermore, the γ-ray shielding properties of the synthesised composites were evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation and a theoretical programme, XCOM. The linear attenuation coefficient of the epoxy resin increased by 43% (at γ-energy of 15 keV) and 14% (at γ-photon energy of 662 keV) when the concentration of the halloysite nanoparticles was increased from 0 wt% to 40 wt%, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제49권7호
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• pp.1571-1574
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• 2017

In the present work, the gamma ray backscattering technique was used to determine the effective atomic numbers for certain binary alloys. With the help of a muffle furnace, the binary alloys were synthesized using the melt quenching technique with different compositions of $_{82}Pb$, $_{50}Sn$, and $_{30}Zn$. The intensity distribution of backscattered photons from radioactive isotope $^{22}Na$ (511 keV) was recorded with the help of GAMMARAD5 [$76mm{\times}76mm$ NaI(Tl) scintillator detector] and analyzed as a function of both atomic number and thickness of the target material. The effective atomic numbers for the same binary alloys were also computed theoretically using the atomic to electronic cross-section method with the help of the mass attenuation coefficient database of WinXCom (2001). Good agreement was observed between theoretical and experimental results for the effective atomic numbers of all the selected alloys.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권3호
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• pp.647-653
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• 2020

Stainless steel is used commonly in nuclear applications for shielding radiation, so in this study, three different types of new stainless steel samples were designed and developed. New stainless steel compound ratios were determined by using Monte Carlo Simulation program Geant 4 code. In the sample production, iron (Fe), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), silicium (Si), sulphur (S), carbon (C), molybdenum (Mo), manganese (Mn), wolfram (W), rhenium (Re), titanium (Ti) and vanadium (V), powder materials were used with powder metallurgy method. Total macroscopic cross sections, mean free path and transmission number were calculated for the fast neutron radiation shielding by using (Geant 4) code. In addition to neutron shielding, the gamma absorption parameters such as mass attenuation coefficients (MACs) and half value layer (HVL) were calculated using Win-XCOM software. Sulfuric acid abrasion and compressive strength tests were carried out and all samples showed good resistance to acid wear and pressure force. The neutron equivalent dose was measured using an average 4.5 MeV energy fast neutron source. Results were compared to 316LN type stainless steel, which commonly used in shielding radiation. New stainless steel samples were found to absorb neutron better than 316LN stainless steel at both low and high temperatures.