The Potentials of Egyptian and Indian Granites for Protection of Ionizing Radiation.

Mohamed Elsafi,M F Alrashedi,M A El-Nahal,Ahmad El Askary,M I Sayyed,Ibrahim F Al-Hamarneh,Hamid Osman,Mostafa El-Khatib,Mayeen Uddin Khandaker

doi:10.3390/ma14143928

Abstract

This paper aims to study the radiation shielding characteristics and buildup factor of some types of granite in Egypt. The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) for three types of granite (gandola, white halayeb, and red aswani) was experimentally determined, and the experimental results were validated by XCOM software. The relative deviation between the two methods does not exceed 3% in all discussed granite samples, which means that MAC calculated through the experimental and XCOM are in suitable agreement. The effective atomic number (Zeff) varies from 13.64 to 10.69, 13.68 to 10.59, and 13.45 and 10.66 for gandola, white halayeb, and red aswani, respectively. As well as the equivalent atomic number (Zeq) was calculated in a wide range of energy to deduce the exposure (EBF) and energy absorption (EABF) buildup factors for the studied granite materials. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), half-value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP) were calculated at each investigated energy and showed that the most effective shielding ability at high energy was red aswani, while at low energy, the shielding ability was nearly constant for studied granites. The present study forms the first endeavor to obtain the radiation shielding properties of the studied materials to be used in practical applications.

Highlights

Radiation is currently used in the medical field, for agricultural purposes, in energy generation, in food processing, and many more
The validity of the transmission geometry used for determining μm of the present granite samples was investigated by comparing the experimental μm values with the theoretical ones that were calculated by WinXCOM [31]
This study evaluated the radiation shielding properties and buildup factor of some types of granite in Egypt

Summary

Introduction

Radiation is currently used in the medical field, for agricultural purposes, in energy generation, in food processing, and many more. Over the past several decades, immense progress has been conducted in using radiation as a treatment to fight cancerous cells and in radiology. These numerous applications demonstrate the necessity of radiation in our daily lives. Despite these benefits, it is important to keep in mind the potentially dangerous nature of radiation [4,5,6]. Ionizing radiation is radiation that has sufficient energy to detach electrons from atoms, which can cause great damage if the human body is exposed to these photons for a long period of time. To prevent workers and patients who are exposed to radiation from these potential side effects, radiation shields are typically used as a protective measure [7,8,9,10]

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