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Shielding effectiveness of boron-containing ores in Liaoning province of China against gamma rays and thermal neutrons

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Abstract

In this study, the mass attenuation coefficient of boron-containing ores in the Liaoning province of China was calculated using WinXCOM software to investigate the shielding effectiveness of these ores against gamma rays. The mass attenuation coefficients were also calculated using MCNP-4B code and compared with WinXCOM results; consequently, a good consistency between the results of WinXCOM and MCNP-4B was observed. Furthermore, the G-P fitting method was used to evaluate the values of exposure buildup factor (EBF) in the energy range of 0.015–15 MeV up to 40 mean free paths. Among the selected ores, boron-bearing iron concentrate ore (M3) was determined to be the best gamma ray shielding ore owing to its higher values of mass attenuation coefficient and equivalent atomic number and lower value of EBF. Moreover, American Evaluated Nuclear Data File (ENDF/B-VII) was used to analyze the shielding effectiveness against thermal neutrons. It was determined that Szaibelyite (M2) is the best thermal neutron shielding material. This study would be useful for demonstrating the potential of boron-containing ores for applications in the field of nuclear engineering and technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Resource and Environment, School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

    Meng-Ge Dong, Xiang-Xin Xue & He Yang

  2. Department of Physics, Karnatak University, Dharwad, 580003, India

    V. P. Singh

  3. Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Shanghai, 201800, China

    Zhe-Fu Li

  4. Physics Department, University of Tabuk, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

    M. I. Sayyed

Authors
  1. Meng-Ge Dong
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  2. Xiang-Xin Xue
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  3. V. P. Singh
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  4. He Yang
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  5. Zhe-Fu Li
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  6. M. I. Sayyed
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Correspondence to Xiang-Xin Xue.

Additional information

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51472048, 50774022) and the Key Laboratory Project of Liaoning Province Education Office (No. LZ 2014-022).

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Dong, MG., Xue, XX., Singh, V.P. et al. Shielding effectiveness of boron-containing ores in Liaoning province of China against gamma rays and thermal neutrons. NUCL SCI TECH 29, 58 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41365-018-0397-x

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