Vol. 127 (2015) ACTA PHYSICA POLONICA A No.

Proceedings of the 4th International Congress APMAS2014, April 24-27, 2014, Fethiye, Turkey

Gamma Attenuation Behavior of Some Stainless

and Boron Steels
*
B. Buyuk
Istanbul Technical University, Energy Institute, Nuclear Researches Division,
Ayazaga Campus, 34469, Sariyer, Istanbul, Turkey
In the present work gamma attenuation behavior of some commonly used commercial stainless steels and
boron steels were investigated. 303, 304, 310, 316, 430 stainless steels and ZF7B, 27M12C5B, 30MNB5 boron
steels were studied against Cs-137 and Co-60 gamma radioisotopes. The linear and mass attenuation coecients of
the samples were measured by using gamma transmission technique. Mass attenuation coecients were compared
with the theoretical values which were calculated by using XCOM computer code. Theoretical and experimental
mass attenuations were closed to each other. In addition half-value thickness (HVT) values of the samples were
calculated and compared with the results of lead (Pb). European Union has published the directive in 2002 and
recast in 2011 about Restriction of Some Hazardous Substances (RoHS) which included Pb. This study shows
that 303, 304, 310 and 316 stainless steels and ZF7B, 27M12C5B, 30MNB5 boron steels are some of the candidate
materials for using in gamma shielding applications instead of lead.
DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.127.1342
PACS: 25.20Dc

1. Introduction

European Union has released a directive in 2002 and

recast in 2011 about restriction of the use of some haz-
ardous substances (RoHS) which includes lead (Pb) in
electrical and electronic equipment [1]. It has been also
reported that there is no economic substitution material Fig. 1. The schematic view of the gamma transmission
for the lead in these devices and systems [2]. It is known measurement technique.
that lead is a commonly used radiation shielding material
in nuclear applications and devices, because of its good In the experiments Cs-137 and Co-60 gamma sources
shielding properties and low cost. On the other hand were used, which have activities of 8.5 µCi and 8.32 µCi,
the lead is a toxic material, thus there are some stud- respectively. Cs-137 has one gamma peak at energy of
ies intended to nd alternative materials, which could 0.662 MeV and half life of 30.1 years [7]. Co-60 has two
be used in radiation shielding applications instead of the gamma peaks at 1.17 and 1.33 MeV (1.25 MeV mean) [7].
lead. Steels, tungsten alloys, concrete, aluminum alloys The half life of Co-60 is 5.27 years. Canberra Model (802-
are some of these candidate material [35]. 2X2) NaI Scintillation detector was placed 14 cm from
In this study 303, 304, 310, 316, 430 stainless steels the source. Both the detector and source were put in the
(SSs) and ZF7B, 27M12C5B, 30MNB5 boron steels lead houses (5 cm thick), which have a 7 mm hole on the
(BSs) were investigated against gamma radiation sources same axis, to see each other and minimize the scattering
(Cs-137 and Co-60). The study of gamma attenuation eect. The accumulation time was adjusted to 300 sec-
properties was carried out and results are compared with onds. Afterwards source was placed and initial gamma
the properties of lead and other candidate materials. radiation I0 was measured. Finally, for each material,
The possible uses of the steels instead of lead in radi- the gamma counts I were detected at dierent material
ation shielding applications were evaluated by the view thicknesses. To get rational evaluation, relative counts
of RoHS Directive. I/I0 were calculated for dierent thickness values of the
samples and evaluated.
2. Experimental procedure 303, 304, 310, 316 and 430 type stainless steels and
Gama transmission technique, a schematic view of ZF7B, 27M12C5B, 30MNB5 boron steels were used in
which is given in Fig. 1, is based on penetration of gamma the experiments. The contents of the studied steels is
rays through materials. The gamma rays which come given in Table I.
from the source are detected with/without material [6]. 3. Results and discussion

The relative counts at dierent thickness values of

the samples were measured and the results are given in
* e-mail: buyukbu@itu.edu.tr the Table II. In the experiments the graphs in Fig. 2
were tted according to Beer Lambert's law which is

(1342)
 Gamma Attenuation Behavior of Some Stainless and Boron Steels 1343

Contents (%) and density ρ (g/cm3 ) of the TABLE I

studied stainless steels and the boron steels
[810]. ∗ 27M12C5B

303 304 310 316 430 ZF7B 27M∗ 30MNB5

Cr 1719 1820 2426 1618 1618 1.25 0.5 0.1
Ni 810 810.50 1922 1014 0.75 0.17 0.06 0.06
C 0.15 0.08 0.25 0.08 0.12 0.17 0.29 0.31
Mn 2 2 2 2 1 1.21 1.25 1.25
Si 1 0.75 1.5 0.75 1 0.24 0.23 0.22
P 0.2 0.045 0.045 0.045 0.04 0.16 0.01 0.014
S 0.15 min 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.003 0.008
N - 0.1 - 0.1 - 0.0132 0.0065 0.0071
Mo 0.6 - - 2.03.0 - 0.07 0.02 0.02
Al - - - - - 0.03 0.024 0.011
Cu - - - - - 0.18 0.15 0.16
Sn - - - - - 0.014 0.009 0.016
B - - - - - 0.0024 0.0021 0.0019
Ti - - - - - 0.002 0.043 0.035
Fe Balance
ρ 8.00 8.03 8.00 7.99 7.74 7.85 7.85 7.85

given below [6];

I = I0 e−µx , (1)
where I and I0 are gamma ray intensity with and with-
out material, respectively and µ is the linear attenuation
coecient for the sample at specic gamma ray energy
and x is the material thickness.
The 304 SS has the highest gamma attenuation ca-
pability for either Cs-137 (Fig. 2a) or Co-60 (Fig. 2b)
gamma sources. On the other hand, for boron steels
30MNB5 has the highest gamma reduction ability for
Cs-137 gamma source (Fig. 2c) and 27M12C5B has the
highest Co-60 gamma attenuation (Fig. 2d) capability.
The linear attenuation coecients for the studied steels
were determined according to Eq. 1 and the results are
presented in Table III.
The Cs-137 linear attenuation coecients of the stain-
less steels were higher than those of boron steels, with
the exception of 430 steel. However it was hard to make
same generalization for Co-60 linear attenuations coe-
cients. The 304 stainless steel had the biggest linear at-
tenuation coecient for both Cs-137 and Co-60 gamma
radioisotopes. From the experimental results, the mass
attenuation coecients µ/ρ of the samples were calcu-
lated. On the other hand the theoretical mass attenu- Fig. 2. Relative counts number as function of material
ation coecients of the samples were determined using thickness for the stainless steels shielding Cs-137 (a) and
XCOM computer code which is a commonly used code Co-60 (b) gamma sources and for boron steels shielding
in the literature [11]. The experimental and theoretical Cs-137 (c) and Co-60 (d) gamma sources.
mass attenuations and dierences expressed in percents
are presented in Table IV. intensity to its half value, were calculated and are given
It can be seen from the Table IV, that the theoret- in Table V.
ical (XCOM) mass attenuation coecients are close to The stainless steels have smaller HVT values than the
experimental ones with the average dierence of 3.24%, boron steels (with exception of 430). On the other hand,
which is caused by the impurities in the samples and by all of them have bigger HVT values than Pb and W for
the production methods. both Cs-137 and Co-60. 304 SS was the closest material
Half-value thicknesses (HVTs), which mean the mate- to lead and tungsten, considering the gamma attenua-
rial thickness needed to reduce the incoming gamma ray tion properties. It means that stainless steels have infe-
1344 B. Buyuk

Relative counts values for dier- TABLE II TABLE III

ent thicknesses of the stainless and The linear attenuation coecients (cm−1 ) of the stainless
boron steels. and boron steels for Cs-137 and Co-60 sources.

Cs-137 Co-60 Material Cs-137 Std. Co-60 Std.

Material Thickness
Rel. Count Rel. Count (0.662 MeV) Dev. (1.25 MeV) Dev.
I0 0 1 1 303 0.565 0.017 0.426 0.008
0.6303 0.7376 0.7386 304 0.609 0.032 0.459 0.009
1.1335 0.4951 0.6110 310 0.569 0.017 0.442 0.021
303 1.7638 0.3741 0.4800 316 0.568 0.007 0.426 0.011
2.1498 0.2869 0.4117 430 0.539 0.013 0.423 0.006
2.7801 0.2140 0.2996 ZF7B 0.543 0.005 0.427 0.009
0.1000 0.9274 0.9509 27M12C5B 0.547 0.010 0.453 0.008
0.2000 0.8822 0.9041 30MNB5 0.554 0.014 0.412 0.012
304 0.3000 0.8180 0.8650
0.4000 0.7781 0.8379
0.5000 0.7528 0.7977 TABLE IV
The mass attenuation coecients µm (cm2 /g) of the
0.5025 0.7330 0.7539 stainless and boron steels for Cs-137 and Co-60 sources.
0.8210 0.6410 0.6444
310 1.3235 0.4495 0.5737 Theoretical Dierence
Material Experimental
1.6397 0.4042 0.4976 (XCOM) (%)
2.1422 0.2974 0.3906 Cs-137
0.6611 0.6880 0.7622 303 7.063 7.252 2.61
1.1202 0.5133 0.5826 304 7.584 7.252 4.58
316 1.7813 0.3468 0.4788 310 7.113 7.271 2.18
2.2417 0.2826 0.3783 316 7.109 7.252 1.97
2.9028 0.1986 0.2966 430 6.964 7.238 3.79
0.0782 0.9523 0.9688 ZF7B 6.917 7.246 4.54
0.1564 0.9087 0.9361 27M12C5B 6.968 7.246 3.83
430 0.2346 0.8812 0.9038 30MNB5 7.057 7.246 2.60
0.3128 0.8530 0.8715 Co-60
0.3910 0.8082 0.8519 303 5.325 5.327 0.04
0.6426 0.6994 0.7809 304 5.716 5.327 7.30
1.0538 0.5521 0.6577 310 5.525 5.34 3.46
ZF7B 1.5788 0.4142 0.5276 316 5.332 5.327 0.09
1.6964 0.4019 0.4881 430 5.465 5.317 2.79
2.2214 0.3068 0.3676 ZF7B 5.439 5.322 2.21
0.7314 0.6892 0.6969 27M12C5B 5.771 5.322 8.43
1.1024 0.5415 0.5929 30MNB5 5.248 5.322 1.38
27M12C5B 1.8338 0.3425 0.4222
2.2148 0.2974 0.3795
2.9462 0.2083 0.2656 TABLE V
The half-value thicknesses HVT
0.6014 0.6812 0.7967
(cm), (0.693/µ), of the stainless and
1.1484 0.5322 0.6674 boron steels and lead for Cs-137 and
30MNB5 1.7498 0.3829 0.4739 Co-60 sources.
2.1025 0.2891 0.4130
2.7039 0.2384 0.3279 Material Cs-137 Co-60
303 1.227 1.627
304 1.138 1.510
rior gamma attenuation properties than lead and tung- 310 1.218 1.568
sten. However the stainless and boron steels have higher 316 1.220 1.627
gamma attenuation capability than concrete and alu- 430 1.286 1.639
minum alloys [35]. Even though tungsten is an alter- ZF7B 1.277 1.623
native material for lead in nuclear applications, the price 27M12C5B 1.267 1.530
of tungsten restricts its usage. On the other hand 304 SS 30MNB5 1.251 1.682
has acceptable commercial price, to be use it in nuclear Lead (Pb) [3] 0.660 1.109
applications instead of lead. Tungsten [3] 0.407 0.676
Concrete [5] 4.8 6.6
Aluminum [5] 3.37 4.61
 Gamma Attenuation Behavior of Some Stainless and Boron Steels 1345

4. Conclusions [2] R. Groÿ, D. Bunke, C.-O. Gensch, S. Zangl, A. Man-

hart, http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/
303, 304, 310, 316 and 430 stainless steels and ZF7B, weee/pdf/hazardous_substances_report.pdf,
27M12C5B, 30MNB5 boron steels were investigated Study on Hazardous Substances in Electrical and
Electronic Equipment, Not Regulated by the RoHS
against Cs-137 and Co-60 gamma radioisotope sources.
The measurements of gamma attenuation properties of
Directive, 2008.
[3] B. Buyuk, A.B. Tugrul, Acta Physica Polonica A
the steels were carried out. The experimental mass at- 125, 423 (2014).
tenuations were close to theoretical ones, with the av-
[4] H. Durmaz, A.B. Tugrul, B. Buyuk, Acta Physica
erage dierence of 3.24 %, which is the result of impu-
rities and production method. In addition HVT values
Polonica A 125, 469 (2014).
[5] L. Mordn, http://www.astm.org/DIGITAL_
for each sample were calculated and interpreted to an- LIBRARY/MNL/SOURCE_PAGES/DS68.htm Handbook
other and compared to lead. Although the steels have of reference data for non-destructive testing, ASTM
less HVTs and larger production cost than lead, they Data series, DS68, USA, 2002.
have lower production cost than tungsten and tungsten [6] B. Buyuk, A.B. Tugrul, Radiation Physics and
alloys. Therefore, stainless steels and boron steels are Chemistry 97, 354 (2014).
still promising candidate materials in gamma shielding [7] B. Buyuk, A.B. Tugrul, Annals of Nuclear Energy
applications instead of lead. 71, 46 (2014).
Acknowledgments
[8] http://asm.matweb.com/search/
SpecificMaterial.asp?bassnum=MQ303H, accessed
The author thanks to Prof. Dr. A. Beril TUGRUL, 15.03.2014.
Mehmet CAKICI and ASIL CELIK Company for their [9] http://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=
useful support. 4392, accessed 15.03.2014.
[10] http://www.gkn.com/hoeganaes/
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