Mechanical and photon shielding aspects of PbO–BaO–WO3–Na2O–B2O3 glass systems

The present work explores the glass system of (50 + x)PbO–5BaO–5WO3–10Na2O–(30−x)B2O3 (x: 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 mol%) for radiation shielding applications. For this purpose, five distinct glass systems (PbBaW50–PbBaW70) have been fabricated via conventional melting technique. The fabricated glass series was then investigated in terms of physical, mechanical, and photon shielding properties. According to the physical determinations, the glass density increases from 5.22881 to 6.50914 g.cm−3 as the PbO ascends from 50 to 70 mol%. On the other hand, the change of the PbO concentration in the respective samples affects the mechanical properties (Makishima and Mackenzie model) due to the change in composition and density of the samples. That is, the values of Young’s, Bulk, Shear, and Longitudinal moduli are nearly the same with the slight decreasing trend for all the moduli, respectively, as the PbO increases. Further, the Poisson’s ratio decreases from 0.179 to 0.171 while the value of fractural bond connectivity ranges from 3.516 to 3.624, and the hardness increases from 2.195 to 2.252 GPa with the increase in PbO concentration. For radiation shielding features, the Phy-X/PSD computations revealed that linear attenuation coefficient (LAC)@0.3029 MeV were equal to 1.627, 1.770, 1.921, 2.062, and 2.223 cm−1 for PbBaW50 to PbBaW70 samples, respectively. By considering LAC determinations, other significant parameters such as mass attenuation coefficient, half-value layer, tenth-value layer, mean free path, and effective atomic number were evaluated. As a result of these findings, one can report that the increasing doping rate of PbO leads to achieving more-performanced radiation shielding materials.