The effect of various waste materials' contents on the attenuation level of anti-radiation shielding concrete

Abstract

Samples of concrete contain various waste materials, such as iron particulates, steel balls of used ball bearings and slags from steel industry were assessed for their anti-radiation attenuation coefficient properties. The attenuation measurements were performed using gamma spectrometer of NaI (Tl) detector. The utilized radiation sources comprised 137Cs and 60Co radioactive elements with photon energies of 0.662 MeV for 137Cs and two energy levels of 1.17 and 1.33 MeV for the 60Co. Likewise the mean free paths for the tested samples were obtained. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of the waste loading rates and the particulate dispersive manner within the concrete matrix on the attenuation coefficients. The maximum linear attenuation coefficient (μ) was attained for concrete incorporates iron filling wastes of 30 wt %. They were of 1.12 ± 1.31×10-3 for 137Cs and 0.92 ± 1.57 × 10-3 for 60Co. Substantial improvement in attenuation performance by 20%-25% was achieved for concrete samples incorporate iron fillings as opposed to that of steel ball samples at different (5%-30%) loading rates. The steel balls and the steel slags gave much inferior values. The microstructure, concrete-metal composite density, the homogeneity and particulate dispersion were examined and evaluated using different metallographic, microscopic and measurement facilities.