Radiation attenuation and nuclear properties of high density concrete made with steel aggregates

Abstract

The fast neutron and gamma ray spectra measured behind different thickness of steel scrap concrete with density of 4 g/cm³ have been studied. The mix proportions by weight of this type of concrete were 1 cement: 6.89 steel scrap: 2.9 sand and 0.5 Water. Comparison with a standard ordinary concrete of density 2.3 g/cm³ have been carried out. The measurements were made using a collimated beam of both gamma rays and neutrons emitted from one of the horizontal channel of the Egyptian Research Reactor-1. A fast neutron and gamma ray spectrometer with a stilbene crystal was used to measure the spectra of fast neutrons and gamma rays. Pulse shape discrimination using the zero cross over technique was used to separate the photon pulses from the electron pulses. The equation due to Schmidt has been modified and applied for determining the neutron effective removal cross sections (～_R) for steel scrap, ordinary, hematite–serpentine, ilmenite–limonite and ilmenite concretes. This equation gives results which are in good agreement with the measured values. The derived empirical equation in a previous work to calculate the neutron integral flux behind different thicknesses of different types of concretes, gives good results for steel scrap concrete under investigation comparing with the corresponding experimental data. Total neutron macroscopic cross sections, linear attenuation coefficients for gamma rays and the half-value layers for both radiations at different energies have been obtained for steel scrap concrete and comparing with the corresponding values of ordinary concrete. The results show that steel scrap concrete is better than ordinary, hematite–serpentine, ilmenite–limonite and ilmenite concretes from the radiation shielding point of view.