Nuclear Science and Techniques

Abstract:

One of the most important safety features of nuclear facilities is the shielding material used to protect the operating personnel from radiation exposure. The most common materials used in radiation shielding are concretes. In this study, a Monte Carlo N-Particle eXtended code is used to calculate the gamma-ray attenuation coefficients and dose rates for a new concrete material composed of MnFe₂O₄ nanoparticles, which is then compared with the theoretical and experimental results obtained for a SiO2 nanoparticle concrete material. According to the results, the average relative differences between the simulations and the theoretical and experimental results for the linear attenuation coefficient (l) in the SiO₂ nanoparticle materials are 6.4% and 5.5%, respectively. By increasing the SiO2 content up to 1.5% and the temperature of MnFe₂O₄ up to 673 K, l is increased for all energies. In addition, the photon dose rate decreases up to 9.2% and 3.7% for MnFe2O4 and SiO2 for gamma-ray energies of 0.511 and 1.274 MeV, respectively. Therefore, it was concluded that the addition of SiO2 and MnFe2O4 nanoparticles to concrete improves its nuclear properties and could lead to it being more useful in radiation shielding.

Key words: Shielding, Radiation, Concrete, Attenuation coefficient, Photon dose, MCNPX code, SiO2 and MnFe2O4 nanoparticles