Correlate the structural changes to gamma radiation shielding performance evaluation for some calcium bismuth-borate glasses containing Nb2O5

Abstract

Abstract Bi2O3 was replaced with Nb2O5 to improve the optical absorption of calcium bismuth borate glass. Series of five samples were prepared according to the chemical formula 60\u202fB2O3 – x Nb2O5 - (20-x) Bi2O3 – 20\u202fCaO, where x\u202f=\u202f0, 2.5, 5, 7.5 and 10\u202fmol%, where all compositions were a melted and quenched in air. The obtained glasses were characterized by density measurements, in addition to molar volume Calculations. For all the studied samples, gamma radiation shielding was carried out, using MCNPX code to investigate the mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ) at different photon energies. The obtained values were found in a good agreement with XCOM results. Using μ/ρ values, parameters like half-value layer (HVL) and mean free path (MFP) were evaluated. Among all the glasses, NbBi1 glass sample was found to possess the lowest values of HVL and MFP while NbBi5 sample has the highest values.