Assesment of the gamma and neutron shielding capabilities of the boro-tellurite glass quaternary containing heavy metal oxide using Geant4 and Phy-X/PSD database

Abstract

This survey was conducted to reveal the gamma and neutron stopping performance of the 30PbO–10ZnO—(60-x)TeO2—xB2O3 (x = 0, 10, 20, 30, 50% mole) glass quaternary. Gamma and neutron attenuation parameters including the linear attenuation coefficient (μ), transmission fraction (TF), half value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), effective atomic number (Zeff), exposure buildup factor (EBF) and fast neutron removal cross-section (∑R) were determined computationally using the Geant4 and Phy-X/PSD database tools and for photon energies ranging between 0.284 MeV and 2.510 MeV. It was found that increasing the B2O3 content from 0% to 50% mole and correspondingly decreasing the TeO2 content from 60% to 10% mole results in a degradation of μ by 18.2% and of Zeff by 28.6% at 0.284 MeV. Due to this decrease in μ and Zeff, the values of TF and HVL increased by 37.3% and 22.4% respectively. In the present study it was also observed that the density (ρ) of glass quaternary decreased with the decreasing content of TeO2, and that the density of glass has a remarkable effect on the photon attenuation characteristics. The Degradation of μ, Zeff, ρ and the increase of TF and HVL proves that the photon attenuation ability of the glasses investigated worsens with decreasing content of TeO2, as Tellurium's atomic number and atomic mass are high compared to those of boron. While the decrease of TeO2 weakens the photon attenuation performance, it was found that fast neutron attenuation increases as ∑R increases from 0.108 to 0.116 for the glass specimens containing 60% and 10% mole of TeO2 respectively.