Pages: 70-74

Authors: Kamal Hadad, Hosein MAJIDI, and Samira Sarshough

Abstract

A new concrete, containing galena mineral, with enhanced shielding properties for gamma sources is developed. To achieve optimized shielding properties, ten types of galena concrete containing different mixing ratios and a reference normal concrete of 2300 kg/m density are studied experimentally and numerically using Monte Carlo and XCOM codes. For building galena concrete, in addition to the main composition, micro-silica and water, galena mineral (containing lead) were used. The built samples have high density of 4470 kg/m³ to 5623 kg/m³ and compressive strength of 628 kg/m² to 685 kg/m². The half and tenth value layers (half value layer and tenth value layers) for the galena concrete, when irradiated with ¹³⁷Cs gamma source, were found to be 1.45 cm and 4.94 cm, respectively. When irradiated with ⁶⁰Co gamma source, half value layer was measured to be 2.42 cm. The computation modeling by FLUKA and XCOM shows a good agreement between experimental and computational results.

Key words: galena concrete, shielding, Monte Carlo, FLUKA, XCOM

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