Gamma ray shielding capabilities of rhenium-based superalloys

Because of the high radiation dose in applications involving nuclear reactors, medical treatments etc., it is important to reduce the exposure to radiation of areas and workers. In this study, we were examined gamma ray shielding parameters of the newly produced Re-based superalloys. Mass attenuation coefficient (mu/rho) of the alloys were obtained experimentally at 81, 276, 302, 356, 383 keV photon energies emitted from Ba-133 radioactive source using Ultra Ge detector. The experimental results were compared with the values obtained by the WinXCOM program and were found to be in perfect agreement with each other. Additionally, effective atomic number (Z(eff)) and electron density (N-eff) were determined for produced Rhenium (Re) based super alloys in the energy range 1 keV-100GeV. S5 sample which has maximum Rhenium percentage own the largest mu/rho and Z(eff) values. Moreover, by using Geometric Progression (GP) approximation, EABF and EBF were computed for the superalloys depending on the energy and penetration depths. It has been deduced that the values of EABF and EBF are minimum in the medium energy region. EBF and EABF values of the alloys have changed depending on the equivalent atomic number. Among alloy samples under study, S5 superalloy is the best for gamma ray shielding. However, in general, considering the radiation energies used in many applications, all the alloys under study have satisfactory radiation absorption properties.