Gamma-ray shielding properties of PVA reinforced with sodium tungstate

Abstract EN

The buildup factor (BF), half value layer (HVL), effective atomic number, and mass attenuation coefficient were calculated for poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) polymer (as matrix element) reinforced by Sodium Tungstate Na2WO4 with different ratio (10-50wt%) as a function of shield thickness, in the wide gamma ray energy range (10-3 – 102) MeV using XCOM-code, and measured at energies (0.356, 0.6616, 1.253) MeV by using (133Ba, 137Cs, 60Co) radioactive sources and gamma spectrometry SAM940TM detector.

We note from the results that mass attenuation coefficient increases with increase thickness and on other hand it's increase with increased the weight fraction of Sodium Tungstate in sample.

Obtained experimental coefficients were compared with the calculated values from XCOMcode where found agree between them.

It is observed that the BF values for all the selected samples decrease very rapidly with increasing photon energy, and shows decreases of BF with increases the effective atomic number of the shielding material, likes the behavior of mass attenuation coefficient with .

Also, the buildup factor is variation with weight fraction (wt%) of Sodium Tungstate-PVA samples with constant gamma ray energy.

The results are in the graphical form and it valid the gamma absorption law.