Modified austenitic stainless-steel alloys for sheilding nuclear reactors

Abstract In this study, seven different steel alloys are based on the nominal composition of free cobalt, although cobalt is one of the alloying composite elements, but it is expensive; Therefore, we proceeded to prepare cobalt-free stainless steel by using an electro slag re-melting technique as a radiation shield to reduce production cost. The proportions of the steel compound were determined using XRF techniques. The gamma and neutron shielding properties of 7 different types of stainless steel have been investigated. We have calculated the mass attenuation coefficient (μ/ρ), half value layer (HVL), and effective atomic number (Zeff) for total photon interaction in the wide energy range of 80 keV–1333 keV using hyper pure germanium (HPGe) detector and WinXCOM computer 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 cobalt-free alloy steels, No. A6 with density 8.28 g/cm3 showed superior gamma ray and neutron shielding properties. This work was carried out to explore the advantages of alloy steels in gamma and neutron protection applications.