Studies of gamma radiation attenuation properties of silica-based commercial glasses utilized in Jordanian dwellings

Due to the country's rapidly expanding economy, Jordanian citizens are replacing their old homes with contemporary multistory structures. Because of the many benefits that come with glasses, these materials are employed for both structural and ornamental purposes. In this study, we investigate the ionising radiation protection and attenuation capabilities of commercial glasses. The shielding capabilities of three glass samples (JOR-1, JOR-2, and JOR-3) with varying elemental weight fractions were examined using a well-shielded NaI detector. We reported the fundamental attenuation coefficients for the glasses under investigation at photon energies of 0.662, 1.173, and 1.333 MeV. The chemical composition of these glasses was examined using Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis. JOR-1 is mainly composed of O (40.88%) and Si (25.97%), with minor contributions from Na (7.59%), Mg (1.57%) and Ca (4.74%). JOR-2 contains Sn (2.37%) in addition to O (42.58%), Si (36.35%), Na (7.74%), and Mg (1.92%). JOR-3 has similar composition with JOR-2 and contains O (43.86%) and Si (36.90%), and notable amounts of Na (8.88%), Mg (1.81%), Ca (8.31%), and S (0.25%). We studied the effective atomic number (Z_eff) for the commercial glasses and we found that the elevated amount of elements with higher atomic numbers, like Ca, Si and S, led to superior Ze_ff values for JOR-2 glass. The absence of Carbon in JOR-2 further improved its Z_eff, with Tin's presence in JOR-2 slightly edging its Z_eff over JOR-3. We compared the HVL for the current commercial glasses with other commercial glasses at 0.662 MeV. We found that JOR-1, JOR-2 and JOR-3 glasses provide better radiation attenuation than rider, PHP and Osmania glasses, while they have higher HVL than RS-360 and very close HVL with RS-253-G18.