Novel light-weight materials for shielding gamma ray

Abstract

A comparison of gamma ray attenuation effectiveness of bulk aluminum, close-cell composite metal foams and open-cell aluminum foam infiltrated with variety of second phase materials were investigated and reported in this study. Mass attenuation coefficients for six sets of samples with three different areal densities of 2, 5 and 10g/cm2 were determined at photon energies of 0.060, 0.662, 1.173, and 1.332MeV. Theoretical values were calculated using XCOM software package. A complete agreement was observed between experimental and theoretical results. It is observed that close-cell composite metal foams exhibit a better shielding capability compared to open-cell Al foam with fillers. It is also observed that close-cell composite metal foams offer superior shielding effectiveness compared to bulk aluminum for energies below 0.662MeV, the mass attenuation coefficients of steel–steel composite metal foam and Al–steel composite metal foam were measured 400 and 300% higher than that of aluminum A356. This study indicates the potential of utilizing the light-weight composite metal foams as shielding material replacing current heavy materials used for attenuation of low energy gamma ray with additional advantages such as high energy absorption and excellent heat rejection capabilities.