Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2022) 137: 344
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02550-9

Regular Article

Assessment of flux and energy buildup factors in shielding of some gamma sources used for industrial radiography

Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, Golestan University, 49138-15739, Gorgan, Iran

^a r.khabaz@gu.ac.ir, ra_khabaz@yahoo.com

Received: 9 July 2021
Accepted: 2 March 2022
Published online: 15 March 2022

Abstract

In radiation shielding, health physics, knowing buildup factors of various materials is necessary. This paper attempts to perform some Monte Carlo simulations with the most recent cross section data to calculate the buildup factors associated with flux and energy of several gamma-ray sources (⁶⁰Co, ¹³⁷Cs, ¹⁹²Ir, ⁷⁵Se and ¹⁶⁹Yb) that are commonly employed in industrial radiography by considering radiation shielding materials: Al, concrete, Fe, Sn, Pb, W and U. Linear attenuation coefficient and flux buildup factors were compared with the coefficient measured with a CsI(Tl)-based γ-ray spectrometer for ⁶⁰Co and ¹³⁷Cs sources. During this work, the energy buildup factors were fitted based on Berger’s formula and the related coefficients were determined for each radionuclide source-shielding material configuration.