Radiation shielding properties of mortars with minerals and ores additives

Abstract

Incorporation of mineral and ores as fine aggregate additives was investigated for its effect on the neutron and gamma-ray shielding properties of cement mortar. Five mortar mixtures have been prepared with different proportions of additives ranging from 0% to 30% of the cement mass by weight. Evaluation of gamma-ray attenuation was both measured experimentally and computed by means of a software. the measurements have been carried out for ores and mortar samples using 59.54, 662 and 1332 keV gamma photons. the theoretical values have been calculated in the energy range from 10 keV to 1 GeV. Many shielding parameters such as mass attenuation coefficient (mu/rho), effective atomic number (Z(eff)) and corresponding electron density (N-eff) and gamma-ray kerma coefficients (k(gamma)) have been determined. 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 by means of a software. the results of this study showed that the gamma-ray and neutron attenuation parameters of the studied mortar samples do not display any significant variation due to the addition of ores and minerals at the investigated mixing proportion (30% of the cement mass by weight).