Gamma shielding and compressive strength analyses of polyester composites reinforced with zinc: an experiment, theoretical, and simulation based study

Abstract

The preparation of materials with high attenuation performance is one of the major issues in the radiation shielding applications. This study is based on the investigation of gamma-shielding performances of various polyester composites reinforced with Zn. Utilizing gamma spectrometer based on HPGe detector, the mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ) of the present composites was measured at various photon energies between 59.5–1408 keV. The obtained experimental data were confirmed with those of MCNPX code as well as XCOM program. It is found that the attenuation coefficient values of the studied composites are in good agreement with the results of other approaches at the investigated energies. The best photon-shielding effectiveness was observed in the composite tagged with Zn (10%). The shielding characteristics of composite enhances with the addition of Zn as filler. © 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.