New Journal of Glass and Ceramics, 2017, 7, 1-11 http://www.scirp.org/journal/njgc ISSN Online: 2161-7562 ISSN Print: 2161-7554 DOI: 10.4236/njgc.2017.71001 December 22, 2016 Gamma Radiation Shielding Properties of Steel and Iron Slags Ravinder Singh 1 , Sukhpal Singh 2 , Gurmel Singh 1 , Kulwant Singh Thind 3 1 Department of Physics, Punjabi University, Patiala, India 2 Department of Basic and Applied Sciences, Punjabi University, Patiala, India 3 GuruNanak Dev University, Amritsar, India Abstract Using steel slag and two types of (soft and hard) iron slags, ten samples were prepared. Different gamma radiation interaction parameters were computed theoretically and measured experimentally at different energies: 60 keV, 136 keV, 662 keV, 1173 keV and 1332 keV in low and medium energy range using narrow transmission geometry. It has been observed that shielding effective- ness of a sample is inversely proportional to Half Value Layer (HVL). The ob- tained results were compared with Pure Flyash and it was observed that slag is better aggregate than flyash in shielding radiation as well as in construction applications. The results have been presented in the form of tables and graphs with more useful conclusions. Keywords Mass Attenuation Coefficient, Effective Atomic Number, Half Value Layer 1. Introduction Gamma radiation interaction is the most accurate, convenient and a non de- structive method of determining the various characteristics of the material. With increasing the use of radioactive isotopes and applications of radiations in many fields such as industry, agriculture, medicine, technology and research, there seems a need to study in depth gamma ray analysis of every material. Gamma ray interaction depends on the extent of absorption or scattering, incident en- ergy, nature of the target material and also on the geometrical conditions. The knowledge of gamma ray interaction parameters [1] of the material provides not only better understanding of the degradation of energy but also a basis for safe handling of what might be admittedly harmful material. The accurate determi- nation of interaction parameters is essential before a given material is used in How to cite this paper: Singh, R., Singh, S., Singh, G. and Thind, K.S. (2017) Gam- ma Radiation Shielding Properties of Steel and Iron Slags. New Journal of Glass and Ceramics, 7, 1-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/njgc.2017.71001 Received: October 11, 2016 Accepted: December 19, 2016 Published: December 22, 2016 Copyright © 2017 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access