The effect of titanium (Ti) additive on radiation shielding efficiency of Al25Zn alloy

Abstract

In this study, gamma ray and neutron shielding properties of Al25Zn alloy samples prepared by induction melting technique with the composition of (75-x)Al-25Zn-xTi (x = 0, 0.01, 0.1 and 1 wt %) were investigated theoretically and experimentally. the mass attenuation coefficients (mu/rho) of the alloys were measured experi- mentally with a coaxial high purity germanium (HPGe) detector at 59.54, 662, 1173 and 1332 keV photon energies. the theoretical values have been calculated in the energy ranging from 1 keV to 1 GeV using WinXcom database. Afterwards, the obtained mass attenuation coefficient values have been utilized for determination of some shielding parameters such as half value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), effective atomic number (Z(eff)) and gamma-ray kerma coefficients (k(gamma)). the calculated values are in good agreement with the observed values. Furthermore, the macroscopic fast neutron removal cross-sections (Sigma(R,) cm(-1)) have also been calculated. Ti1 coded alloy sample containing 1% Ti was found to have maximum radiation protection efficiency (RPE) and neutron removal cross section (Sigma R, cm(-1)) as well as the smallest half value layer (HVL) and mean free path (MFP) values. Hence, the results of this study showed that Ti1 alloy specimen has superior gamma and neutron radiation shielding performance among the other compared alloys.