The impact of Co addition on neutron-photon protection characteristics of red and yellow clays-based bricks: An experimental study

High strength and heat resistance properties of radiation shielding materials are among the most sought properties. Due to their mechanical and thermal properties, bricks can be a good alternative for radiation protection applications. In this respect, nuclear radiation attenuation parameters of seven brick samples containing different amounts of Cobalt metal (0, 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 %wt) were examined in this study. Initially, SEM-EDX analysis of bricks were carried out to determine the elemental composition and structure of the bricks. Next, the bricks were exposed to gamma rays with 53.16, 79.61, 80.99, 276.39, 302.85, 356.01, 383.84 keV photon energies emitted from Barium-133 radioactive source and the transmitted photon intensities were detected by utilizing Ultra-Ge detector. Mass attenuation coefficient (MAC), effective atomic number (Z(eff)), Half Value Layer (HVL), Mean Free Path (MFP) and exposure buildup factors (EBF) values of bricks were determined by experimentally and EpiXS program. At 53.-383 MeV photon energy interval, it is found that the MAC values for S0-S6 brick samples range between 0.427 and 0.097 cm(2)/g and 1.130-0.0961 cm(2)/g. In addition, the neutron shielding features of the bricks under study were assessed by calculating effective removal cross section (Sigma(R) ). It is noticed that the Sigma(R) values of the samples gradually grow from 0.057 cm(-1) to 0.1392 cm(-1) with increasing Co addition. It has been concluded that rising the Co addition improves the gamma and neutron shielding capacity of the brick samples.