Evaluation of the radiation shielding characteristics of WO3-MoO3-TeO2/Sb2O3 glasses

Abstract

This study reports the WO3-MoO3-TeO2/Sb2O3 glass system by means of its shielding ability against gamma photons, neutrons and charged particles. The studied glass system has two components, namely WO3-MoO3-Sb2O3 (denoted by WMS) and WO3-MoO3-TeO2 (denoted by WMT). The shielding properties of WMS and WMT glass systems were examined by using several theoretical methods and the FLUKA simulation code over energies between 0.1 to 10 MeV for gamma rays shielding application and between 0.01 and 10 meV for neutron shielding ability. The obtained results indicated that both linear attenuation coefficient (mu) and mass attenuation coefficient (mu/rho) of WMS and WMT glasses are lowest at 6 MeV and they are highest at 0.10 MeV. The minimum half value layers (HVLs) of WMS and WMT glasses are at 0.10 MeV with values of 0.08506, 0.07822, 0.08268, and 0.07257 cm for WM51, WM52, WMT1 and WMT2, respectively. Maximum HVLs occured at 6 MeV with values of 3.89233, 3.70118, 3.89804, and 3.63977 cm for WMS1, WMS2, WMT1 and WMT2, respectively. The mean free paths (A) of WMS and WMT glasses modify from 0.12272 to 5.61545 cm for WMS1, from 0.11284 to 4.33968 cm for WMS2, from 0.11928 to 5.62368 cm for WMT1 and from 0.10462 to 5.25107 cm for WMT2. The WMT2 has the largest values of effective electron densities (N-eff) between 0.10 and 0.6 MeV and WMT1 has the largest values between 0.8 and 10 MeV. The largest gamma dose rates (D-r) are obtained at 10 MeV and the smallest D-r values are obtained at 0.5 MeV. Both cross-sections (Sigma(R)) for fast neutrons and (sigma(tot)) for thermal neutrons change in order of WMS1 < WMS2 < WMT1 < WMT2.