Investigation on the Effects of Boron Carbide Particle Size on Radiation Shielding Properties of Boron Carbide-Titanium Diboride Composites

Boron carbide is a material which has wide application areas in industry including nuclear technology. Titanium diboride-boron carbide composites which were produced from different boron carbide particle sizes were studied for searching of the behaviour against the gamma ray. Micron size and submicron size boron carbide were used to produce composite materials. The volume of boron carbide and titanium diboride in the composites are 85% and 15%, respectively. For the investigation of the gamma radiation behaviour of these materials, Cs-137 radioisotope was used as gamma source in the experiments which has a single gamma-peak at 0.662 MeV. Gamma transmission technique was used for the measurements. The effects of boron carbide particle size on radiation attenuation of titanium diboride-boron carbide composites were evaluated in relation with gamma transmission and the results of the experiments were interpreted and compared with each other. It could be understood that decrease of particle size of boron carbide in boron carbide-titanium diboride composites causes higher linear and mass attenuation coefficient values. So, submicron size boron carbide used composite materials are more convenient than micron size boron carbide used composite materials as radiation shielding materials for nuclear applications.