Experimental studies and Monte Carlo simulations on gamma ray shielding competence of (30+x)PbO-10WO3-10Na2O-10MgO-(40-x)B2O3 glasses

In the present study, we utilized the melt quenching method to fabricate (30 + x)PbO-10WO(3)-10Na(2)O -10MgO-(40-x)B2O3 (where x = 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 mol %) glasses. The mass attenuation coefficients (mu/rho) have been measured at four energies using gamma spectrometric system and the measured values were validated by MCNPX code and XCOM software. The variation in the experimental, theoretical and MCNPX mu/rho values coincided with each other in all energy regions. The linear attenuation coefficient values for the prepared glasses are proportional to the increase of PbO concentration; however reduce with the increasing photon energy. Besides, we found that the addition of PbO to the glasses leads to reduce in HVL values in the photon energy range, which suggested that the addition of PbO in the synthesized glasses enhances property of more photons absorption of the glass samples. The effective atomic number (Z(eff)) for the prepared glasses was also calculated and then, we discussed the effect of PbO on the Z(eff). The Z(eff) values lie within range of 29.95-42.77, 20.90 to 30.88, 17.99 to 26.46, and 17.74 to 26.07 for 0.356, 0.662, 1.173 and 1.33 MeV, respectively.