Abstract
Borate glasses composed of PbO-TeO2-MgO-Na2O-B2O3 were prepared by melt-quenching technique. The radiation shielding and mechanical properties of this glass system were thoroughly investigated. The density of the glasses increases from 3.283 to 3.923 g/cm3 as the PbO content increases from 20 to 35 mol%. The mechanical properties are evaluated using the Makishima and Mackenzie model. The density and chemical composition of the samples are found to affect the mechanical properties. Furthermore, produced glasses' radiation shielding properties were evaluated by calculating the basic attenuation factors such as the mass/linear attenuation coefficients, half/tenth value layers, radiation shielding efficiency and lead equivalent thickness. These parameters were calculated for photon energies in the range of 15 keV-15 MeV using Phy-X software. We discussed the impact of PbO and B2O3 on the attenuation parameters of these glasses, and we found that these oxides affected the attenuation ability of the samples, especially at low energies. The mass attenuation coefficient for the prepared glasses has high values at 88 keV. The results for the different parameters demonstrated that the glass containing 35 mol % PbO has the best photon attenuation ability among other glasses. While, the sample with highest B2O3 content possesses the highest half value layer. The radiation shielding parameters for prepared glass system were compared with other materials.