Investigation of radiation shielding parameters of different heavy metallic glass compositions for gamma radiations

In this study, the interaction parameters of gamma rays in six heavy metallic glass samples with densities ranged from 2.43 to 4.373 g/cm³. Phy-X/PSD program were used to estimate gamma radiation interaction parameters in the energy range (0.015–15) MeV. The outcomes of this research showed that the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) increased with increasing sample density, at 0.015 MeV gamma energy, the LAC were reported as 151.895, 122.761, 81.294, 75.504, 22.041, and 19.266 cm⁻¹ for the glasses BTC1, BTC2, PZCNF2, PZCNF1, PKFC2, and PKFC1, respectively. Similar to the linear attenuation coefficient (LAC), the mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) was also calculated. As the energy of the incident photon increases, the half-value layer (HVL), the tenth-value layer (TVL), and the mean free path (MFP) increase. The higher value of Z_eff has superior radiation shielding capability. For all thicknesses, the glass samples had the lowest transmission factor (TF) magnitudes in the low-energy region. The study emphasizes the significance of density in influencing shielding properties and concludes that BTC1 metallic glass exhibits the maximum shielding ability against gamma radiations among the investigated glasses.