Investigation of gamma-ray shielding capability of glasses doped with Y, Gd, Nd, Pr and Dy rare earth using MCNP-5 code

The capability of using five rare earth oxides (Y2O3 (S1-Y), Gd2O3 (S2-Gd), NdCl3 (S3-Nd), PrO11 (S4-Pr), and Dy2O3 (S5-Dy)) doped glasses as gamma-rays shielding has been evaluated. The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC, mu(m)) in the photon energy between 0.015 and 15 MeV has been simulated with help of MCNP5- code and calculated by XCOM program. There was agreement between the calculated and simulated results. The highest mu(m) was found for the glass samples S4-Pr, S5-Dy and S3-Nd, respectively while, the lowest mu(m) obtained for Yttrium glass sample (S1-Y). Several another gamma-rays shielding parameters such as mean free path (MFP), half value layer (HVL), effective atomic number (Z(eff)), and effective electron density (A(eff)) for the studied glasses have been evaluated and compared with some commercial radiation shielding materials such as concretes, heavy metal oxides, and RS-520 glass. Results reveal that the lowest HVL obtained for the samples (S4-Pr and S5-Dy), while the highest HVL obtained for S1-Y sample. The highest Z(eff) is obtained for S4-Pr glass sample, while the lowest Z(eff) is obtained by S1-Y. generally, the rare earth glass samples (S4-Pr and S5-Dy) have good shielding properties corresponding to commercially standard RS-520 (SF6), Zinc bismuth borate glass (10ZnO-30Bi(2)O(3)-60B(2)O(3)) and concretes.