Investigation of chemical composition and moisture content for different materials on the attenuation of γ rays

In the present work, materials, namely mud, sand mud, ferruginous sandstone and sandstone with different densities are used to evaluate the effect of chemical composition and moisture content on the self-attenuation coefficient factor at γ-energy range from 59.5 to 1332.5 keV. The results revealed that the attenuation coefficient increases with increasing the moisture content until the material saturate with moisture. The average value of increasing linear attenuation coefficients based on increasing moisture content are 14.3%, 16.0%, 18.2%, 28.1% and 24.8% at γ-energies 59.5, 356.0, 661.7, 1173.4 and 1332.5 keV, respectively. Chemical composition of material affected on the values of attenuation, i.e. the elements with high density have high attenuation coefficient. Significant effect of self-attenuation correction factor was observed at low γ-energies up to 500 KeV. Application of the calculated correction of environmental sample with low radioactivity content has been carried out.

Improvements to the Chebyshev expansion of attenuation correction factors for cylindrical samples

The accuracy of the Chebyshev expansion coefficients used for the calculation of attenuation correction factors for cylindrical samples has been improved. An increased order of expansion allows the method to be useful over a greater range of attenuation. It is shown that many of these coefficients are exactly zero, others are rational numbers, and others are rational fractions of π −1 The assumptions of Sears [J. Appl. Cryst. (1984), 17, 226–230] in his asymptotic expression of the attenuation correction factor are also examined.