Abstract
The total and partial mass attenuation coefficients for different Maraging steel compositions have been determined by using the WinXCom and MCNP5 programs. The effective atomic number, Zeff, and effective electron number, Neff, for the studied steels have been determined via the total mass attenuation coefficients μ/ρ, the total atomic and electronic cross sections (σa and σe) of the investigated steels. The shielding parameters μ/ρ, Zeff, and Neff have been calculated at the incident photon energy range of 1 keV–100 MeV. The calculated results of total and partial mass attenuation coefficients, the effective atomic number and the effective electron number by using MCNP5 program were found to be in good agreement with the theoretical results of the WinXCom program. The calculated data clarify that the different steel compositions under investigation have so far the same ability of gamma attenuation. Also, it was found that the total mass attenuation coefficients of the different investigated steels (cobalt free-Maraging steels) are comparable to the C250 standard steel (cobalt Maraging steel). Key words: Gamma rays, shielding, mass attenuation coefficients, effective atomic number, effective electron number.
Highlights
Steels are used in the reactor core, fuel transport and storage, plant structures and a lot of other nuclear uses
It can be seen from this figure that the total mass attenuation coefficients for the investigated steels decrease with the increase in the incident photon energy
This good agreement can be seen from the variation of the total mass attenuation coefficient via the incident photon energy presented in Figure 4 for the sake of comparison
Summary
Steels are used in the reactor core, fuel transport and storage, plant structures and a lot of other nuclear uses. As a result of use on a large scale in the nuclear field (nuclear power plants such as fusion reactor, accelerator driven systems or the fission generation reactors) Maraging steels should be investigate as a shielding material. In order to achieve this purpose the radiation absorption mechanism in materials should be known This can be represented by some physical parameters such as mass attenuation coefficients μ/ρ, effective atomic number Zeff and effective electron number Neff. The mass attenuation coefficient μ/ρ (cm2/g) is a measure of the probability of interactions of photon with matter (Hubbell, 1982, 1999; Hubbell and Seltzer, 1995) This coefficient is not constant but depends on the energy of the incident photon, and the density and atomic number of elements. As originally stated by Hine (Hine, 1952) the effective atomic number Zeff of a multi-element material is not a constant, it varies with the energy of the incident photon
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