Comprehensive evaluation of γ-ray shielding in high-density glass composites: Experimental measurements and XCOM validation

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ability of glasses (A1-A5) possessing a range of densities (6.276 to 9.452 g/cm 3 ) to attenuate gamma radiation at three different photon energies. The study was conducted using a narrow-beam transmission method. Through determined several attenuation parameters such as transmission factors (TF), linear attenuation coefficients (μ), mass attenuation coefficients (μ/ρ), half value layers (HVL), and mean free path (MFP). The results were discovered that the TF for A1 at 1.332 MeV of incident photon energy and an initial thickness of 0.31 cm was approximately 0.91; indicating very little attenuation occurred at even higher photon energy. In contrast, reduced TF values for A1 measured at 0.662 MeV were between ∼0.80-0.85. The computed linear attenuation coefficient of A1 at 1.332 MeV is approximately 0.28-0.30 cm -1 . At 0.662 MeV, it is higher, ∼0.35 cm -1 . This causes the HVL values to increase between the values of approximately 2.0 cm at 0.662 MeV to approximately 2.4-2.6 cm at 1.332 MeV. Generally, the findings indicate that glass materials with high densities are more effective in getting rid of gamma rays, and thus good materials in terms of medical, industrial, and nuclear radiation protection.