Study of Mechanical, Physical and Gamma Radiation Attenuation Properties for Concrete Mixes Prepared from Naturally Occurring Ores and Synthetic Aggregates

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Egyption Armed Forces, Cairo, Egypt.

2 Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

Abstract
Ordinary concrete is widely used in many applications that concerned with gamma and neutron radiation shielding. They are widely used in nuclear power plant, nuclear shelters, radiotherapy-mega voltages rooms and for transporting as well as storage of radioactive wastes. In this study four different concrete mixes were prepared using dolomite, barite, goethite and steel slag as coarse aggregates. Fine aggregates for all samples selected to be 50% local sand and 50% limonite with theaddition of 10% silica fume (SF) and 10% fly ash (FA) by replacement of the total cement weight. The cement type used in this study was Portland blast furnace slag cement (PBFSC) with quality CEM/B-S 42.5 N according to EN 197-1standard. Many investigations were performed on physical, mechanical and radiation attenuation properties of these mixes to stand on the best concrete mixes that can be used for radiation shielding applications. A verification using WinXcom program (Version 3.1) was made for radiation attenuation test results. The results revealed that all concrete mixes; goethite-limonite concrete (G.L), Barite-limonite concrete (B.L), steal slag-limonite concrete (S.L) and dolomite concrete (D.C) had good physical and mechanical properties that classified them as high performance concrete. Barite-limonite concrete (B.L) and steal slag-limonite concrete (S.L) were the best for γ-ray attenuation at relatively low and high energy ranges (<1ϺeV and >1ϺeV). The results obtained from WinXcom program (Version 3.1) showed good agreement with the experimental results of the γ-ray attenuation tests.

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