Comprehensive study of the radiation shielding feature of polyester polymers impregnated with iron filings

Abstract Radiation and nuclear technologies have side effects in addition to their important applications, so appropriate shields must be used protect users the public from high doses as a result of exposure this radiation. In work, attenuation coefficients for polyester composites doped with waste iron filings (IFs) were studied. Six samples different IF concentrations manufactured, namely, Poly, Poly-IF20, Poly-IF30, Poly-IF40, Poly-IF50, Poly-IF60 (where represents 40% 60% IF). We measured factors using purity germanium (HPGe)-detector along three radioactive sources 241 Am (emitting energy 0.06 MeV), 137 Cs 0.662 Co-60 1.173 1.333 MeV). compared linear coefficient (LAC) obtained by theoretical (i.e., XCOM software) experimental HPGe-detector) approaches prepared at various photon energies (0.060, 0.662, 1.173, The greatest difference between LAC values occurs 0.060 MeV, where sample has much greater than other shields, followed Poly-IF50 sample, Poly-IF40 on until pure shield. Specifically, are equal 0.245, 0.622, 0.873, 1.187, 1.591, 2.129 cm −1 Poly-IF60, respectively. calculated transmission factor (TF) radiation shielding efficiency (RSE), found that TF Poly-IF30 is 28.82%, 77.94%, 82.75%, 83.75% 0.060, 1.333, respectively, while its RSE 82.57%, 24.00%, 18.80%, 17.72%, fast neutron removal cross-section (FNRC) was increase when more Ifs added samples. More specifically, FNRC 0.095, 0.100, 0.103, 0.107, 0.110, 0.113