Comparative shielding features for X/Gamma-rays, fast and thermal neutrons of some gadolinium silicoborate glasses

Abstract

X/Gamma-rays, fast and thermal neutrons shielding properties for eight gadolinium based glasses (labeled as S1:S8) have been investigated at energies between (0.015–15 MeV) using MCNPX code and WinXcom software. The correlation coefficient (R2) was used to assess the degree to which MCNPX results are related to that of WinXcom. For all glass samples, R2 was found close to 1, this infers a perfect degree of correlation between the MCNPX and WinXcom results. Multiple parameters including, mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ), half value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), effective atomic number (Zeff), electron density (Nel), radiation protection efficiency (RPE), exposure and energy absorption buildup factors (EBF & EABF), specific absorbed fraction of energy (SAFE), kerma relative to air (Ka), macroscopic effective removal cross section (ΣR), and total neutron cross-section of thermal neutron (σt) were determined and compared with that of other frequently used along with recently studied shielding materials. The results show that, as the Gd2O3 content increases, the μ/ρ, Zeff, Nel, RPE, ΣR and σt values increase while HVL, MFP, EBF, EABF, and SAFE values all decrease as follow: the values of MAC ranges from 0.0173 to 1.906 and 0.0281–31.831 cm2 g−1; Zeff varied from 6.027 to 8.836 and 10.497–45.659; HVL varied from 0.152 to 16.750 and 0.005–5.533 cm; Nel varied (from 2.8 to 4.25) x1023 and (2.88–13.96) x1023 (electrons/g) for S1 and S8 respectively. In addition, among all studied glasses, S8 glass sample (with G2dO3 content of 35% mol) provided a fully protection for X-rays (RPE = 100%). Moreover, when compared to other common shielding materials and recently studied glasses (in terms of MFP), the S8 sample was found to have the highest attenuation performance relative to many of these materials. In terms of fast and thermal neutrons, the addition of Gd2O3 had a great effect on increasing the attenuation capability for fast and thermal neutrons as follow: the ΣR and σtotal values were increased from 0.120 to 0.145 cm−1 and from 123.99 to 15,258.73 b for S1 and S8 respectively. In addition, the S8 sample was found to have the highest neutron attenuation performance when compared to other common shielding materials and recently studied glasses. Therefore, S8 sample found to have superior characteristics for radiation and neutron shielding applications. The findings of this study might be highly useful in the future for medicinal and industrial applications.