Influence of Bi 2 O 3 on Mechanical Properties and Radiation-Shielding Performance of Lithium Zinc Bismuth Silicate Glass System Using Phys-X Software.

We analyzed the mechanical properties and radiation-shielding performance of a lithium zinc bismuth silicate glass system. The composition of these glasses is 20ZnO-30Li 2 O-(50-x)SiO 2 -xBi 2 O 3 (x varies between 10 and 40 mol%). The mechanical properties of the investigated glass system, such as Young's modulus ( E ), bulk modulus ( K ), shear modulus ( S ), and longitudinal modulus ( L ), were determined using the Makishima-Mackenzie model. The elastic moduli gradually decreased with the addition of Bi 2 O 3 . E decreased from 46 to 31 GPa, K decreased from 27 to 14 GPa, S decreased from 19 to 14 GPa, and L decreased from 52 to 32 GPa as Bi 2 O 3 was substituted for SiO 2 . The mass attenuation coefficient (MAC) was investigated at energies between 0.284 and 1.33 MeV to understand the radiation-shielding performance of the glasses. The MAC value increased when SiO 2 was replaced by Bi 2 O 3 . We found that the effect of Bi 2 O 3 on MAC values was noticeably stronger at energies of 0.284 and 0.347 MeV, while the effect of Bi 2 O 3 on MAC values became weaker as energy increased. The linear attenuation coefficient (LAC) results demonstrated that if the samples were exposed to low-energy photons, the glass could prevent the penetration of photons, and thus, the glass samples were effective in radiation protection. The LAC values for the lowest- and highest-density samples changed from 0.998 to 1.976 cm -1 (at 0.284 MeV) and from 0.286 to 0.424 cm -1 (at 0.826 MeV). According to the radiation-shielding results, the thick, high-density glass sample has special and distinctive shielding properties.