124 BORON 5 (3), 124 - 130, 2020 Investigation of radiation attenuation properties of Al-Cu matrix composites reinforced by diferent amount of B 4 C particles Uğur Gökmen 1 *, Zübeyde Özkan 2 , Leili Eslam Jamalgolzari 3 , , Sema Bilge Ocak 4 1 Gazi University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Department of Advanced Technologies, 06500 Ankara, Turkey, ORCID ID orcid.org/0000-0002-6903-0297 2 Gazi University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Department of Advanced Technologies, 06500 Ankara, Turkey, ORCID ID orcid.org/0000-0003-2901-7749 3 Gazi University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Department of Advanced Technologies, 06500 Ankara, Turkey, ORCID ID orcid.org/0000-0001-9740-3604 4 Gazi University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Department of Advanced Technologies, 06500 Ankara, Turkey, ORCID ID orcid.org/0000-0002-0590-7555 BOR ISSN e-ISSN : 2149-9020 : 2667-8438 JOURNAL OF BORON DERGİSİ ULUSAL BOR ARAŞTIRMA ENSTİTÜSÜ NATIONAL BORON RESEARCH INSTITUTE 20 20 03 05 BOR DERGİSİ JOURNAL OF BORON *Corresponding author: ugurgokmen@gazi.edu.tr https://dergipark.org.tr/boron ABSTRACT In recent years, B 4 C particle reinforced Al matrix composite materials have been excessively used for gamma and neutron shielding regarding their neutron absorption and lightweight. In this paper, linear and mass attenuation coefcients using 80 keV, 356 keV, 137 Cs (662 keV), 60 Co (1173 keV,1332 keV) and 2000 keV(high energy) gamma energies for B 4 C (5-15 wt%) particle-reinforced Alumix 13 and Alumix 231 (which contains special alloy elements such as Cu and Mg) aluminum matrix composites were theoretically calculated with XCOM platform. Pair production, coherent scattering, photoelectric absorption and incoherent scattering processes besides the total attenuation coefcients for B 4 C (5-15 wt%) particle-reinforced Alumix 13 and Alumix 231 matrix composite materials were evaluated separately. On the other hand, half-value thickness (HVL) values and one-tenth thickness values (TVL) were also calculated to evaluate the radiation shielding efectiveness of this material excluding coherent scattering values that are frequently used in gamma ray transport theory as well as the total attenuation coefcients. Gamma attenuation curves for Al composite materials against 80 keV, 356 keV, 137 Cs (662 keV), 60 Co (1173 keV, 1332 keV) and 2000 keV (high energy) gamma energies were theoretically calculated and plotted for B 4 C (5-15 wt%) particle-reinforced Alumix 13 and Alumix 231 matrix composite materials. According to the obtained results for this material, radiation attenuation properties and the ability of shielding of materials were investigated. Therefore, this study is original from a variety of aspects, and its results may be used not only in nuclear technology but also in other technologies such as nano and space technology. ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 01 May 2020 Received in revised form 29 July 2020 Accepted 29 August 2020 Available online 30 September 2020 Research Article DOI: 10.30728/boron.730354 Keywords: Boron carbide (B 4 C), Shielding, Absorption, Al composites, Gamma radiation. 1. Introduction People are consistently exposed to background radia- tion from cosmic rays and the sun in the atmosphere, inherently happening radioactive materials within earth, houses, food and their bodies. Therefore life and radiation are not separable and radiation is im- portant in our daily life. Radiation could be described as non-ionizing and ionizing regarding its energy. Ion- izing radiation described with alpha particles, X and gamma rays, beta particles have high energy and ion- ize atoms of the interacting matter. When a gamma ray interacts with the matter, there are main processes as photoelectric absorption, pair production and Comp- ton scattering which take place. Therefore radiological measurements and radiation protection are signifcant nuclear studies specifcally for accelerators, nuclear power plants, detector manufacturers and other wide- spread use of radioactive isotopes in many felds [1-4]. The shielding, which is implemented naturally or is composited materially, is widely and efectively used for protection from hazards of radiation. Recently, Novel multifunctional composite materials have been studied to improve gamma ray shielding materials. A lot of studies were about composite materials by using fller metal oxides or metal materials and various matrix to merge distinct characteristics of these materials on composite radiation shielding [5]. As result, these radi- ation shielding materials were frequently signifcant to defend life and other materials from the degrading ef- fect of these harmful radiations emitted from unshield- ed radioactive sources. These materials decrease the danger dosage by interacting with radiation itself and reducing radiation energy. High-density materials such