Influence of heavy metal oxides to the mechanical and radiation shielding properties of borate and silica glass system

Abstract

Six borate and silica glasses with varying compositions were investigated for their mechanical and radiation shielding viability. Makishima-Mackenzie elastic model was utilized to study the elastic properties of the investigated glasses. The obtained results illustrated that PbO and Bi2O3 oxides reduced the glass samples' mechanical properties. For instance, the bulks' model decreased between 68.15 and 44.10 GPa, the shear model also followed the same trend and decreased from 31.95 to 23.33 GPa, reducing the PbO and Bi2O3 ratios in the studied glass samples. Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code (MCNP-5) was utilized to evaluate the investigated glasses' shielding capacity. The obtained results depict that the highest linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) occurred at 0.356 MeV; it takes values 0.618, 1.024, 1.161, 1.271, 1.963, and 2.071 cm−1 for G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, and G6. Based on the simulated values of LAC, other shielding properties such as transmission rate (TR), radiation protection efficiency (RPE), half-value layer (HVL) were evaluated. The calculated results illustrated that the shielding properties enhanced with Bi2O3 and PbO insertion ratios.

Keywords

• Radiation shielding
• Glasses
• Makishima-Mackenzie model
• Elastic properties