the total and partial interaction processes of Ne,eff values for the glass
sample containing 5 mol% of Bi2O3 are shown in Fig. 11. It is observed
that Ne,eff shows similar trends to Zeff.
The MFP as shown in Fig. 12 can be divided into 3 regions. In the
first region (103–101 MeV), the interaction of gamma-rays photon
with bismuth borosilicate glass is quickly decreased (increase
of MFP) with increasing energy. In the second region (101–
101 MeV), the MFP is increased at a slower rate. After 101 MeV (last
region) the MFP show a rather constant in value with further increase
of energy. Fig. 12 is also shown with four regions of the radiation
shielding property of the glasses and shielding concretes
(serpentite, odinary, chromite, ferrite and barite concrete) in expanded
inset picture. The MFP values of bismuth borosilicate
glasses are clearly lower than shielding concretes over 4 energy
ranges, (i) 2–5 keV, (ii) 20–40 keV, (iii) 100–300 keV (except for
0 mol% of Bi2O3) and (iv) 10 MeV to 100 GeV, except for 0 and
5 mol% of Bi2O3.
The MFP represents the average traveled distance between two
successive photon interactions. The shorter MFP indicates more
interaction of photons to material and hence the better shielding
properties are obtained. It is observed that most of the glass samples
show lower values of MFP in comparison to the standard concretes.
These results are good indications that the bismuth
borosilicate glasses in the present study can be used as radiation
shielding materials.
4. Conclusions
The present study gives the values for the gamma-rays mass
attenuation coefficients, effective atomic numbers, effective