Utilization of garnet residue in radiation shielding cement mortar
Introduction
With increasing nuclear applications, such as nuclear research and medical diagnostic centers, power reactors, and high-energy particle accelerators, the protection against nuclear radiation becomes very important for avoiding the harmful effects on human health and the environment [1], [2]. High-density concrete is well known and has been widely used as radiation shielding for many years, due to its properties and it can be prepared from a variety of materials and methods. To produce high-density concrete for radiation shielding, the heavy aggregates, such as magnetite [3], [4], [5], hematite [6], limonite [7], [8], colemanite [9] and barite [10], [11], are utilized, to gain concrete densities of approximately 2600–4500 kg/m3. In concrete mixes designed for radiation shielding, the most considerable rays are gamma and neutron. In many cases, the high-density concretes from these heavy aggregates preferred potential to attenuate the gamma-rays rather than the neutrons, due to the aggregates containing no elements with a high neutron capture cross-section. The finding was concurred by Akkurt and El-khayatt [12]. They conducted a study using high-density concrete made from barite to be the neutron and gamma-ray barrier. They noted that barite was more effective on gamma-ray shielding rather than neutron shielding.
Typically, concrete can partly absorb neutrons due to the hydrogen contained in it (approximately 1% unit weight) [13]. To improve the shielding property against both gamma-rays and neutrons, this could be obtained by mixed hydrogenous materials, heavy metal elements and other neutron absorbers [12]. Roslan et al. [14], utilized ferro boron with granite as coarse aggregates to prepare high-density concrete. They concluded that the gamma-rays are attenuated by concrete density, whereas neutron transmission is influenced more by the ferro boron content in concrete. Kharita [15] proposed that the hematite concrete contributed to its high density for gamma shielding and the presence of the high content of iron and iron hydroxide for neutron shielding.
In recent years, there have been some research studies that have utilized industrial by-products or wastes, such as lead mine, iron slag, electric arc furnace slag and steel shot, as a substitute for conventional aggregate in radiation shielding concrete. These by-products or wastes have been pronounced to not only reduce costs and waste to landfills, but also as alternative materials for radiation shielding concrete. Cullu and Ertas [16] prepared lead mine waste concrete to attenuate the gamma-rays, and noted that the linear attenuation coefficient decreased due to an increasing amount of lead mine waste. Maslehuddin et al. [17] also revealed that the use of 50% of electric arc furnace and 50% of steel shot as coarse aggregate could meet the weight and radiation requirements. Ouda et al. [18] showed that sand replacement by iron slag at 100% by weight in cement mortar gave the highest strength, density and gamma-ray shielding efficiency. This indicated that iron slag can fully replace sand in cement mortar.
In this investigation, garnet residue, a by-product from the abrasive industry, was applied and utilized as an alternative cheaper material in radiation shielding concrete. The main objective of this investigation was to study the effect of sand replacement by garnet residues at various percentages (25–100%) on the physical, mechanical, microstructure, leaching and radiological properties of cement mortar. In regard to the radiological property, the study aimed to investigate the attenuating capacity of garnet residue on both neutrons and gamma-rays.
Section snippets
Materials and mix proportions
In this investigation, garnet residue was obtained from Best Performance Engineering Co. Ltd, and was used to replace sand at the level of 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% by weight (symbols as CT, G25, G50, G75 and G100, respectively). The particle distribution of garnet residue is illustrated in Fig. 1, and its fineness modulus is represented as 1.74 with a specific gravity of 4.16, as given in Table 1. The mineralogical property of the garnet residue was indicated to be an almandine type, as shown in
Compressive strength test
Fig. 4 shows the compressive strength of the cement mortar for all the mixtures at 7, 14, 28 and 90 days. All the mixtures exhibited progressively enhanced compressive strength with curing times as caused by the hydration reaction [25]. The sand replacements by garnet residues obviously increased the compressive strength at all curing times. Regarding Table 3, the incorporation of garnet residue in cement mortar mixtures trend to decrease water requirements. These relatively low W/C ratios lead
Conclusions
Based on the experimental findings and discussion of this investigation, the following conclusions can be drawn:
- 1.
The incorporation of garnet residue in cement mortar as an aggregate could be attributed to physical and mechanical properties improvements.
- 2.
The highest compressive strength obtained from the fully replaced sand by garnet residue had a 125% higher value compared to the control sample for 90 days.
- 3.
The cement mortar incorporating garnet residue showed no adverse impact on hydration
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Kittipong Kunchariyakun: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing - review & editing. Patimapon Sukmak: Resource, s.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors acknowledge the instruments and laboratory support provided by Ionizing Radiation Metrology Section, Regulatory Technical Support Division, Office of Atoms for Peace, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation, Thailand and is grateful for financial support of Walailak University under contact WU_IRG61_32. Also, this research was partially supported by the New Strategic Research (P2P) project (phase 2), Walailak University, Thailand (GRANT No. CGS-P2P-2563-029).
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