Study on a High-Boron-Content Stainless Steel Composite for Nuclear Radiation

In this research, a high-boron-content composite material with both neutron and γ rays shielding properties was developed by an optimized design and manufacture. It consists of 304 stainless steel as the matrix and spherical boron carbide (B4C) particles as the functional particles. The content of B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2021-11, Vol.14 (22), p.7004
Main Authors: Sun, Wei-Qiang, Hu, Guang, Yu, Xiao-Hang, Shi, Jian, Xu, Hu, Wu, Rong-Jun, He, Chao, Yi, Qiang, Hu, Hua-Si
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boron
Boron carbide
Carbon
Cesium 137
Cesium isotopes
Composite materials
Density
Design
Design optimization
Fuel storage
Genetic algorithms
Nuclear energy
Nuclear fuels
Nuclear power plants
Nuclear radiation
Optimization
Particle physics
Radiation
Radiation shielding
Reference materials
Spent nuclear fuels
Stainless steel
Stainless steels
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Summary:In this research, a high-boron-content composite material with both neutron and γ rays shielding properties was developed by an optimized design and manufacture. It consists of 304 stainless steel as the matrix and spherical boron carbide (B4C) particles as the functional particles. The content of B4C is 24.68 wt%, and the particles’ radius is 1.53 mm. The density of the newly designed material is 5.17 g·cm−3, about 68.02% of that of traditional borated stainless steel containing 1.7 wt% boron, while its neutrons shielding performance is much better. Firstly, focusing on shielding properties and material density, the content and the size of B4C were optimized by the Genetic Algorithm (GA) program combined with the MCNP program. Then, some samples of the material were manufactured by the infiltration casting technique according to the optimized results. The actual density of the samples was 5.21 g cm−3. In addition, the neutron and γ rays shielding performance of the samples and borated stainless steel containing 1.7 wt% boron was tested by using an 241Am–Be neutron source and 60Co and 137Cs γ rays sources, respectively, and the results were compared. It can be concluded that the new designed material could be used as a material for nuclear power plants or spent-fuel storage and transportation containers with high requirements for mobility.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944
DOI:10.3390/ma14227004