Radiation effects on structural properties of glass by using ultrasonic techniques and FTIR spectroscopy: A comparison between local sand and SiO2

•The results indicated that the structure of glasses change after irradiation.•The irradiation causes increase in the number of non-bridging oxygen atoms.•The local sand was more affected by irradiation than SiO2, due to Fe3+ impurity in the local sand.

A comparison between local sand and SiO2 with different compositions of CeO2 with respect to the structural properties of glasses after successive irradiation was carried out by using ultrasonic techniques and FTIR spectroscopy. The ultrasonic velocities were measured by the pulse echo technique, with a frequency of 4 MHz and at room temperature. From these obtained velocities and densities, various elastic moduli, micro-hardness and Poisson’s ratio were calculated. The results indicate that local sand is more affected by gamma irradiation than SiO2. These results are due to a higher iron impurity in local sand leading to the occurrence more non-bridging oxygen (NBO).