Soil mass attenuation coefficient: Analysis and evaluation

• Experimental mass attenuation coefficient is affected by sample size.
• Sample thickness larger than 9 cm presents the best results for 137Cs.
• Sample thickness smaller than 5 cm presents the best results for 241Am.

The mass attenuation coefficient (μ) is an important parameter to characterize the penetration and interaction of gamma-rays in the soil. Accurate determinations of μ are important to obtain representative values of soil physical properties by gamma-ray attenuation technique. In this study, the effect of collimator size (2–4 mm diameters) and absorber thickness (2–15 cm) on the experimental μ values of water and soils with different textures were investigated for 59.54 keV (241Am) and 661.1 keV (137Cs) gamma-ray sources. Theoretical results were calculated using the program XCOM. Experimental results were compared with theoretical ones showing a good correlation between methods. It was observed that for the 137Cs the best agreements between theoretical and experimental μ were obtained for sample thickness ⩾10 cm while for the 241Am were those obtained for thickness <5 cm for small collimators.