Abstract
The increasing demand for high-performance radiation shielding materials in nuclear infrastructure, medicalfacilities, and industrial radiography applications has intensified interest in advanced radiation shielding concrete.Herein, we present the development of a novel, sustainable, Neutron-Proof Radiation Shielding Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (NP-RS-UHPC) by harnessing the separate and synergistic effects of silica sand, magnetite,and ferroboron on neutron shielding performance. NP-RS-UHPCs were designed by coupling particle packing andresponse optimizations to achieve optimum flowability, density, compressive strength, and neutron shieldingperformance. NP-RS-UHPCs with up to 50 % improvement in fast-neutron removal cross-section were developed.Ferroboron-rich NP-RS-UHPCs exhibited thermal-neutron absorption cross-sections exceeding 3000 % of those inmagnetite- and silica-sand-only systems while distinctly manifesting what we define as the Neutron AbsorptionSaturation Threshold (NAST), which marks a characteristic material thickness where nearly all absorbablethermal neutrons are captured. A bivariate exponential decay model was developed to predict thermal-neutrontransmission in Ferroboron-rich NP-RS-UHPC. Results confirmed NP-RS-UHPC’s potential to deliver bothimproved mechanical performance and multi-spectrum radiation shielding efficiency, demonstrating its suitabilityfor neutron-rich environments including small modular reactors.
NETL
NSTL
Elsevier