Shielding Cosmic Ray Muon using Copper and Aluminium Sheets Composited with Polyethylene Sheets for a Better Protection

Abstract

Muons are usually among the most common secondary cosmic ray particles on Earth's surface. Muon research has confirmed their occurrence in a variety of locales. It has been claimed that cosmic radiation in general, and muons in particular, have disastrous consequences on biological things and electrical components on Earth and in space. According to medical sources, cosmic rays have been linked to many ailments affecting people and other creatures. Because of these issues, cosmic ray shielding has become a crucial component of this and comparative studies. Muons emitted by cosmic rays were detected using a muon telescope made of coaxial Geiger-Muller (GM) tubes. This experiment was carried out within the muon lab of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Malaysia to examine how the cosmic ray muon count fluctuates with the shielding of metals (Copper (Cu) and Aluminium (Al)) and polyethylene. The measured muon count for each metal sample was statistically analysed. Using both metals as shielding in this experiment revealed that adding additional Cu and Al sheets reduced the muon count. Generally, the numbers drop as the thickness increases. The results suggest that Cu outperforms Al in shielding efficacy (19% vs 16%). Because Cu has a more significant density than Al, the correlation coefficient R2 for Cu = 0.9372 is greater than R2 for Al = 0.6593, indicating that the trend for Cu is better than the trend for Al in this experiment. To study the shielding capabilities of the two composites, Al/PE and Cu/PE, ten sheets of Polyethylene (PE) were gradually put individually between the Al and Cu sheets. The results showed that PE sheets slightly increased cosmic ray shielding.