SURFACE ELECTRICAL RESISTANCE MEASUREMENTS TO EVALUATE RADIATION SHIELDING PERFORMANCE OF HEAVYWEIGHT CONCRETES
RADIATION PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY, ss.1-50, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.radphyschem.2026.114474
- Dergi Adı: RADIATION PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Engineering Source (EBSCO), Scopus, Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Chemical Abstracts Core, Chimica, Compendex, EMBASE, INSPEC
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.1-50
- Gazi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Heavyweight concrete is widely employed in radiation shielding structures; however, practical non-destructive approaches for indirectly evaluating their shielding performance remain limited. This study investigates the potential of surface electrical resistance (ER) measurements as a comparative indicator of the radiation shielding performance of heavyweight concrete. To this end, barite, magnetite, and hematite were used as coarse aggregates to replace natural aggregates at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% replacement rates. The resulting mixtures were characterized in terms of their physical, mechanical, transport, and radiation shielding properties, and ER measurements were performed for up to 120 days. The shielding performance was evaluated using linear attenuation coefficients and the corresponding required shielding thicknesses under Cs-137 (661.7 keV), Ra-226 (1120.3 keV), and neutron radiation sources. The results demonstrated that the barite-based mixtures achieved the best shielding performance, followed by the magnetite- and hematite-based mixtures, whereas the natural aggregate mixture exhibited the lowest performance. Among all the mixtures, BA100 and BA75NA25 exhibited the highest attenuation coefficients and required shielding thicknesses approximately half those of NA100, indicating a more economical alternative to conventional concrete. The ER increased with the heavyweight aggregate content and exhibited a positive cross-mixture association with the Cs-137 linear attenuation coefficient at 120 days (R2 = 0.658). Although ER and radiation-shielding performance are governed by different physical mechanisms, unit weight was an important parameter associated with both responses; however, aggregate type, replacement level, and other mixture-related characteristics also contributed to the observed results. These findings suggest that ER measurements can be used to evaluate the relative radiation shielding performance of different heavyweight concrete mixtures.