Mechanical and Gamma-Ray Interaction Studies of PbO–MoO3–Li2O–B2O3 Glass System for Shielding Applications in The Low Energy Region: A Theoretical Approach

The mechanical and radiation shielding properties for the PbO–MoO3–Li2O–B2O3 glass system were theoretically investigated in this paper. The PbO–MoO3–Li2O–B2O3 glass system (coded as investigated glasses) was fabricated using the melt quenching mechanism. The optical packing density (OPD) increases from 75.563 to 84.366, and oxygen molar volume (OMV) decreases from 13.234 to 11.853 cm3/mol when increasing the PbO concentration. The values of elastic moduli decreased from 47.06 to 39.67 GPa for Young, from 33.51 to 32.41 GPa for bulk, from 19.82 to 16.29 GPa for shear and from 59.94 to 54.14 GPa for longitudinal moduli as the PbO is increased. The radiation attenuation characteristics were reported at the photon energies used in diagnostic radiology. The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) was evaluated using the three photoatomic data libraries EPICS2017, EPDL97, and XCOM, available in the EpiXS and Phy-X programs. The MAC for the five investigated glasses at 20 keV was much higher than the MAC at 40, 60 and 80 keV. The MAC for investigated glasses increased with the addition of PbO, with Pb-S1 demonstrating the lowest MAC, and Pb-S5 demonstrating the highest MAC. Additionally, the rate of the increment of MAC at 20 keV as the concentration of PbO increased was higher than that at 40, 60 and 80 keV. The effective atomic number (EAN) was determined using Phy-X program. The EAN follows the trend: Pb-S5 > Pb-S4 > Pb-S3 > Pb-S2 > Pb-S1. The EAN results proved that the glass with low amounts of B2O3 and higher amounts of PbO had good attenuation features. The EAN had the maximum values of 73.55–76.67 at 20 keV, whereas the lowest values occurred at 80 keV and varied between 53.63 and 63.39. The half-value layer (HVL) results showed that the Pb-S1 glass had the greatest HVL, while Pb-S5 had the least. There is a higher discrepancy between the tenth-value layer values at 80 keV than at 20 keV. At 20 keV, the difference between the highest and lowest TVL values (Pb-S1 and Pb-S5) was only 0.004 cm, while the difference at 80 keV was 0.152 cm. Pb-S5 is the most space-efficient radiation shield.