Effect of PbO on the shielding behavior of ZnO-P205 glass system using Monte Carlo simulation

In this work, MCNP5 as a Monte Carlo code is used to calculate gamma ray attenuation coefficient of x PbO-(50 - x) ZnO-50 P2O5 glasses where x = 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 mol% at 0.122, 0.356, 0.511, 0.662, 0.84, 1.17, 1.275 and 1.33 MeV photon energies. The simulated results of mass attenuation coefficients were compared with the output of XCOM program. Good agreement was observed between simulated and XCOM results. The obtained mass attenuation coefficients were further used to calculate the effective atomic number, electron density, half value layer and mean free path. The maximum values of mass attenuation coefficients and effective atomic number were found for PZPb50 glass sample. The results from this study indicate that the MCNP5 code used in this work may be utilized as a better alternative to experimental work to make supplementary calculations on the photon attenuation characteristics of other materials and glass systems. The lower values of the mean free path of the selected samples as compared to the standard shielding concretes; establishes them as suitable gamma shields. PZPB50 is the best among the selected shielding glasses.