The rapid expansion of the nuclear industry requires shielding materials which not
only must serve as an adequate shield but must also be available at a reasonable cost.
Among the conventional shielding materials, the most important shielding materials in
use today include water, concrete, lead and iron. For an installation such as a nuclear reactor,
both neutron and gamma radiation must be considered; combinations of several of these
materials are therefore required for adequate protection. Some studies have already been
carried out to seek for novel shielding materials with both the neutron and gamma-ray
shielding ability. A number of them are briefly presented in this section.
Theoretically and experimentally, special glasses have been developed which
accomplish the double task of allowing visibility while absorbing gamma-rays and neutrons,
thus protecting the observer [25]. Glasses rich in boron and cadmium are used to absorb slow
neutrons [26]. A number of these studies have been conducted in India.
the material, and how much space is available for the material. The effectiveness of the
shielding material is determined by the interactions between the incident radiation and the
atoms of the absorbing medium. The interactions which take place depend mainly upon the
type of radiation, the energy of the radiation, and the atomic number of the absorbing
medium. Among all the types of radiation, this work involved gamma-ray and neutron
radiation.