Radiation Shielding and Spectroscopic Investigations of Newly Produced Co and Ni Based Super Alloys

With the rise in applications involving high-radiation exposure, it is imperative to implement measures to minimise the adverse effects of radiation. There is a great need for material development that can be used at high temperatures, especially in the nuclear industry. Superalloys have properties that can serve this purpose. In order to achieve this objective, new Co-based and Ni-based super alloys were produced in the study. Ni, Fe, Mo, Cr, Nb, Ti, Al, Co, Ta and W were selected for developing Co-based alloys, and Ni, Fe, Cr, Nb, Ti, Al, Co and B were selected for Ni-based alloy. The goal of the study is to obtain new materials which have better shielding performances with superior properties. In this regard, the radiation protection parameters; linear attenuation coefficients, mass attenuation coefficients, effective atomic number, half-value layer, mean free path, effective conductivity, effective electron number, exposure and energy absorption buildup factors, atomic and electron cross sections, and fast neutron attenuation cross-sections of the alloys were performed by Phy-X/PSD code. Further, EPR, XRD and EDS-SEM spectroscopic techniques were used and the results were appraised within this context. It can be noted that the content of W, Ta and Mo, due to the features of high density and high atomic number, improves the radiation attenuation efficiency of the alloys. It is also seen that the fast neutron attenuation ability is affected by Ni, Ta, Mn and Mo contents. It was concluded that the newly fabricated super alloys can be evaluated as good radiation shields in high temperature applications such as nuclear reactors.