Mass attenuation coefficients, effective atomic numbers and effective electron densities for some polymers

Abstract

In this study, the total mass attenuation coefficients ((m)) for some homo- and hetero-chain polymers, namely polyamide-6 (PA-6), poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) were measured at 59.5, 511, 661.6, 1173.2, 1274.5 and 1332.5 keV photon energies. The samples were separately irradiated with Am-241, Na-22, Cs-137 and Co-60 (638 kBq) radioactive gamma sources. The measurements were made by performing transmission experiments with a 2 ' 2 ' NaI(Tl) scintillation detector having an energy resolution of 7 at 662 keV gamma ray from the decay of Cs-137. The effective atomic numbers (Z(eff)) and the effective electron densities (N-eff) were determined experimentally and theoretically using the obtained (m) values for the investigated samples. Furthermore, Z(eff) and N-eff of each polymer were computed for total photon interaction cross-sections using theoretical data over a wide energy region from 1 keV to 10 MeV. The experimental values of the selected polymers were found to be in good agreement with the theoretical values.