Comparison of some lead and non-lead based glass systems, standard shielding concretes and commercial window glasses in terms of shielding parameters in the energy region of 1 keV–100 GeV: A comparative study

The effective atomic numbers, Zeff of some glass systems with and without Pb have been calculated in the energy region of 1 keV–100 GeV including the K absorption edges of high Z elements present in the glass. Also, these glass systems have been compared with some standard shielding concretes and commercial window glasses in terms of mean free paths and total mass attenuation coefficients in the continuous energy range. Comparisons with experiments were also provided wherever possible for glasses. It has been observed that the glass systems without Pb have higher values of Zeff than that of Pb based glasses at some high energy regions even if they have lower mean atomic numbers than Pb based glasses. When compared with some standard shielding concretes and commercial window glasses, generally it has been shown that the given glass systems have superior properties than concretes and window glasses with respect to the radiation-shielding properties, thus confirming the availability of using these glasses as substitutes for some shielding concretes and commercial window glasses to improve radiation-shielding properties in the continuous energy region.