Program BUF: A computer toolkit for primary investigations of buildup factors in single and multilayer shields

Abstract

The buildup factors play a central role in radiation shielding studies for designing of a shield to reduce the intensity of radiations reaching out to any object or at point of observation. In order to meet out the most of practical shielding requirements of buildup factors, it becomes crucial to find a generalized toolkit applicable for multi-layer shields. The Taylor’s approximation has been widely studied for radiation shielding calculations and it is observed that this approximation is accurate enough to evaluate buildup factor data for elements and compounds composing single-layered shields. In this study, the Taylor’s formula is attempted for estimation of buildup factors for multi-layered shields. Numerical calculations have been performed by developing a program source code employing this fitting approximation and the computation is able to reproduce buildup factors data for single-layer shields. Moreover, results for two-layered, three-layered, four-layered and five-layered are also seen to be produced numerically. The program calculates buildup factors in the energy range of 0.5 MeV−10 MeV for shields having effective atomic number lying between 10 and 92. Wherever possible, the validity of the developed source code is tested by comparing outputs with available results in literature.