Abstract
Due to their excellent heat resistance, superalloys are used predominantly in the manufacturing of engine parts and accessories for aircraft and aerospace equipment. The Monte Carlo simulation (MCNP-5) code was performed to estimate the mean track length of the incident photons inside six different alloys. Then, based on the simulated track length, other important gamma-ray shielding parameters were calculated. In this study, the highest mass attenuation coefficient was obtained for alloys encoded MAR-302 and MAR-247 and varied in the range 0.035-72.94 and 0.035-71.98 cm(2)center dot g(-1), respectively. The lowest mass attenuation coefficient was found for alloys coded Inconel-718 and Nimocast-75 with a range of 0.033-59.25 and 0.32-59.30 cm(2)center dot g(-1), respectively. Use was made of a recently developed online program Phy-X/PD to calculate the effective atomic number, equivalent atomic number, and the buildup factors for the alloys of interest. The effective removal cross-section for the fast neutron was also calculated for the studied alloys: the highest value was found for the alloys coded with Inconel-718 ( n-ary sumation (R) = 0.01945 cm(2)center dot g(-1)) and Nimocast-75 ( n-ary sumation (R) = 0.01940 cm(2)center dot g(-1)), and the lowest value was obtained for alloy coded MAR-302 ( n-ary sumation (R) = 0.01841 cm(2)center dot g(-1)). Calculated data indicate that MAR-302 and MAR-247 are superior candidates for shielding of gamma-rays, while Inconel-718 and Nimocast-75 MAR-302 are suitable for the shielding of fast neutrons.