Examining Low-Energy Gamma-Ray Protection of a New Promising Saudi Cement Product as Alternative Cementitious Material Using Geant4 Software

Abstract

In modern life, cement products have become an essential material for the foundations in many structural building designs. Because of this, the natural effects of this material need to be tested and cannot be ignored. Modeling interactions of gamma rays with several cementitious compounds is the focus of this study. Gamma radiations exist naturally and artificially, but with limited gamma-ray energies, which are not easy to access for experimental gamma attenuation studies. So in the current work, a wide range of low gamma-ray energies (0.01 to 0.356 MeV) are applied to investigate the gamma radiation attenuation properties theoretically for different cement materials. Also, the Monte Carlo statistical method is applied using the Geant4 toolkit to simulate the results.

The outcomes are compared with theoretical values using XCOM to validate at these energies. The effective atomic number ($Z_{\mathit{eff}}$), electron density ($N_{\mathit{eff}}$), and half-value layers (HVLs) for the studied samples are computed based on the simulated mass attenuation coefficient (${\mu }_m$), as expected. The outcomes show good agreement between the simulated results with those calculated theoretically by XCOM within an 11% deviation.

The silica fume sample showed a slightly higher ${\mu }_m$ value compared with the other samples. The dependence of the photon energy and cement composition on the values of the ${\mu }_m$ and HVLs are investigated and discussed. In addition, the values of $Z_{\mathit{eff}}$ and $N_{\mathit{eff}}$ for all cement samples behaved similarly in the given photon energy range, and they decreased as the photon energy increased.

Keywords:

• Geant4
• gamma attenuation coefficients
• half-value layer
• effective atomic number
• cementitious compound

Acknowledgments

The author would like to extend her gratitude to the students she supervised during the final year project for the help they provided, especially Shatha Nasser Alsubaie for her valuable support.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The author extends her appreciation to the Deputyship for Research & Innovation, Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia for funding this research work through project number IFP-IM-SIU202215.