Investigation of shielding parameters for smart polymers

• The gamma and neutron shielding properties of 8 different types of smart polymers have been investigated.
• The values of μ/ρ, Zeff and Ne have been calculated in the energy range 1 keV–100 GeV.
• The value of effective removal cross section (∑R) found depend on the elemental composition and the density of the samples.
• Among the selected polymers DMSO, PEI showed superior shielding properties for γ-ray and neutrons respectively.

In this work, the gamma and neutron shielding properties of 8 different types of smart polymers have been investigated. We have calculated the mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ), effective atomic number (Zeff) and electron density (Ne) for total photon interaction in the wide energy range of 1 keV–100 GeV using WinXCom program. Furthermore, the macroscopic effective removal cross-sections (∑R) for fast neutron were calculated. The dependence of different parameters on incident photon energy and chemical content has been discussed. Among the selected smart polymers DMSO and PEI showed superior shielding properties for γ-ray and neutron, respectively. This work was carried out to explore the advantages of the smart polymers in γ-ray and neutron shielding applications.