Evaluation of gamma ray shielding characteristics of CaF2–BaO –P2O5 glass system using Phy-X / PSD computer program

Abstract In this work, we reported the gamma ray shielding factors for barium phosphate glasses with composition yCaF2–(50−y)BaO–50P2O5 (y = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 mol%). The Phy-X/PSD software has been used to report the attenuation and penetration factors for this glass system at different energies. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) values are found to reduce exponentially with increasing the energy and they range from 0.176 to 0.496 cm−1 (for CaBaP1) and 0.184–0.548 cm−1 (for CaBaP6). It was found that the addition of barium oxide (BaO) causes an increase in the LAC values from 0.697 to 0.787 cm−1 at 0.284 MeV, and from 0.259 to 0.273 cm−1 at 0.662 MeV. The effective atomic number (Zeff) results revealed the higher photons interaction possibility at the higher BaO content. The maximum Zeff is reported at 0.284 MeV and equal to 18.33 for CaBaP1and 20.15 for CaBaP6. Phy-X/PSD program has been used to find the half value layer (HVL) for the glasses under evaluation between 0.284 and 1.33 MeV. The HVL results showed that more gamma rays are being shielded at 0.284 MeV, whereas the possibility of photon shielding is decreased with the increasing of the energy. The tenth value layer (TVL) values were decreased with increase in BaO concentrations and increased with increase in the energy. CaBaP6 has the minimum TVL (4.206 cm at 0.284 MeV, 8.445 cm at 0.662 MeV and 12.252 cm at 1.275 MeV).