Radiation Protection Dosimetry (2005), Vol. 115, No. 1–4, pp.

258–261
doi:10.1093/rpd/nci154

NEUTRON SHIELDING MATERIAL BASED ON

COLEMANITE AND EPOXY RESIN
Koichi Okuno
Technical Research Institute, Hazama Corporation, 515-1 Karima, Tsukuba-shi,
Ibaraki-ken, 305-0822, Japan

In recent years, there has been a need for compact shielding design such as self-shielding of a PET cyclotron or upgradation of
radiation machinery in existing facilities. In these cases, high performance shielding materials are needed. Concrete or
polyethylene have been used for a neutron shield. However, for compact shielding, they fall short in terms of performance or
durability. Therefore, a new type of neutron shielding material based on epoxy resin and colemanite has been developed. Slab
attenuation experiments up to 40 cm for the new shielding material were carried out using a 252Cf neutron source.

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Measurement was carried out using a REM-counter, and compared with calculation. The results show that the shielding
performance is better than concrete and polyethylene mixed with 10 wt% boron oxide. From the result, we confirmed that the
performance of the new material is suitable for practical use.

INTRODUCTION Table 1. Typical elements of colemanite (weight%).

Recently, plans to upgrade a radiation source or
machinery in existing facilities were made. Gener-
ally, the radiation strength becomes stronger when
machinery is upgraded. Only safe machines that
decrease radiation leakage are designed. However,
in many cases, it is not enough. There are two meth-
ods for additional shielding. One is increasing con-
crete shielding on the wall surface, the other
one is adding a self-shielding cover around the
machinery. However, if they use additional concrete,
the room becomes smaller. Also, effective shielding
material is needed for a self-shielding cover because
the size of the cover is limited. In one case a mixture
of concrete, polyethylene and boron carbide is used
as self-shielding material(1). It gives good results, but
making the material requires an advanced mixing
technique because the density and grain size of the
materials used are different.
The polyethylene and polyethylene mixed
boron oxide are widely used as effective neutron
shielding materials, but they have poor mechanical
strength, heat resistance and durability for neutron
irradiation.
Epoxy resin is used for painting the floor in radia-
tion facilities because it has good durability for
gamma ray irradiation. Epoxy resin also has good
durability for neutron irradiation. Therefore, a
material that uses a mix of epoxy resin with boron
carbide is used for instance in a nuclear fuel cask, but
the boron carbide is very expensive.
New neutron shielding material based on
colemanite and epoxy resin has been developed
and its shielding performance has also been
estimated.
Corresponding author: okunok@hazama.co.jp
B2O3 44.5
CaO 27.0
MgO 2.0
Fe2O3 0.05
SiO2 4.5
COLEMANITE
Colemanite is a natural rock that contains boron
oxide. It is being used as raw material for instance
in glass fibre. It is mainly found in Turkey and a few
other places in the world. The typical constituents of
colemanite is shown in Table 1.
Research on neutron shielding materials using
colemanite has been going on for more than 40 y.
The main research theme was to make concrete using
colemanite(2), but colemanite has characteristics such
as poor rock strength and it dissolves in water.
Therefore, it is difficult to make concrete which
keeps its quality, however, concrete blocks can be
made(3).
EPOXY RESIN
Epoxy resin is widely used in the field of industry.
The main characteristics of epoxy resin are good
dimensional stability, high heat resistance, high
mechanical strength and chemical proof. It is also
used in the field of atomic energy, e.g. floor painting
in radiation facilities and for nuclear fuel casks,
because it has good durability for gamma rays.
Moreover, epoxy resin has durability for reactor
neutrons with a degassing character and form
stability(4).

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 NEUTRON SHIELDING MATERIAL
A MIXTURE OF EPOXY RESIN AND
COLEMANITE
Epoxy resin is made by mixing a main agent with the
curing agent. However, it becomes difficult to cure
when epoxy is mixed with foreign materials.
Advanced technology that controls the curing heat
and post-life (the time until curing after the mixture)
is required when making thick epoxy resin for shield-
ing materials. Moreover, mixing with foreign
materials, reduces mechanical strength and also
causes poor heat resistance because mixing foreign
materials is equal to resin loss. So, the best mixing
parameter must be studied.
There are mainly two methods to cure epoxy resin.

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One method is pouring liquid state epoxy resin into a
mould, the other method is to laminate thin epoxy
resin plates using a press machine. From the point of
view of cost, industrial working and wide applica-
tion, the first method which did not need additional
heating was best.
To satisfy these requirements, the grain size of
colemanite was adjusted and the type of epoxy
resin was selected. Mixing in of bubbles and material
separation were caused when mixing materials with
large grain size. If bubbles were mixed in, it resulted
in lack of shielding, poor mechanical strength and
material separation. After much research and con-
sideration of producibility by the factory, a grain size
of 45 mm was found. The selection of the type of
epoxy resin was also done on the basis of the require- Figure 1. Block-shape and the plate-shape of the new
ment that the curing temperature was equal to the shielding material.
room temperature, the curing heat during curing was
not high and that the pot-life was suitable for indus- Table 2. Result of density and element analysis for the new
trial work. As a result, epoxy resin of Bisphenol-A shielding material (weight%).
type was selected.
The most suitable amount of colemanite con- C 25.5
tained was calculated by using MCNP4C2(6) with H 3.8
ENDF/B-VI(6). The result is that 24 wt% is an opti- N 1.2
mum value for 252Cf neutron source. It was ineffec- O 15.8
tive for a decreased dose even if mixed with more SiO2 2.23
than 24 wt%. However, the material separation and Al2O3 0.6
mixture of many bubbles occurred when using this Fe2O3 0.3
mixing amount. Therefore, additional research was CaO 16.6
MgO 0.41
carried out. As a result, 200 wt% was found to have Na2O 0.029
no material separation and no bubbles. Curing of K2O 0.088
thick epoxy resin has also become possible. The TiO2 0.035
block-shape and the plate-shape of the new shielding P2O5 0.016
material are shown in Figure 1. The results of density Li 0.005
and element analysis are shown in Table 2. B2O3 30.4
3
Density 1. 74 g cm

SLAB ATTENUATION EXPERIMENT

The slab attenuation experiment was carried out to
check neutron shielding performance of the new
shielding material. The size of each slab was
800 mm  800 mm  50 mm. Two pieces of these
slabs were cut in half for the thick slab. These slabs
were piled up to the height of 40 cm. The experiment
was carried out at the neutron shield laboratory of
HAZAMA Corporation. A 252Cf neutron source
whose intensity was 1.992  106 (n s 1 cm 2) was

259
 K. OKUNO
REM-counter
400
50 New shielding material
100 Source
Figure 2. Experimental set-up and experiment state.
set at the centre under the assembly. Measurement
was done by a REM-counter (ALNOR 2202D). The
REM-counter was set at the centre above the assem-
bly. The meter on the counter was not used for
reading the measurement, but pulse counting used
for the measurement and converted to a dose equiva-
lent using a dose conversion factor was found by
calibration of the REM-counter. The experimental
set-up and experiment state are shown in the
Figure 2.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
The result of the slab attenuation experiment is
shown in Figure 3. The result was shown in the
form of the neutron dose attenuation rate. A calcu-
lation was done by MCNP4C2(6) with ENDF/B-
VI(6). The calculation model was slabs and the
neutron source was obtained from Watt’s formula
which is built in the MCNP4C2(6). The calculations
of shielding performance for polyethylene mixed
with 10 wt% boron oxide were also carried out for
comparison. Figure 3 shows that new shielding
material has better shielding performance than
260
101
New shielding material (calculation)
New shielding material (experiment)
Polyethylene mixed with 10 weight% boron oxide (calculation)
1 Concrete (calculation)
Neutron dose attenuation rate
10-1
10-2
10-3
10-4
10-5
10-6
10-7
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0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Material Thickness (cm)
Figure 3. Comparison between calculation and
experiment.
concrete and polyethylene mixed with 10 wt%
boron oxide. The performance was about two times
better than concrete.
The polyethylene mixed with 10 wt% boron oxide
has more hydrogen atoms than the new shielding
material because the new shielding material includes
200 wt% colemanite. However, the content of boron
oxide of the new shielding material is more than
polyethylene mixed with 10 wt% boron oxide. The
effect of boron content for neutron shielding is dif-
ferent according to source energy and the ratio of
neutrons and gamma rays(5). The reason for the
good performance is not clear at present. Therefore,
further investigation correlating the shielding effect
and number of atoms for this new shielding material
will be required.
CONCLUSION
A new type of shielding material was developed
using epoxy resin and colemanite. Many tests for
material characteristics were also carried out. They
showed that the new material has about three times
the mechanical strength of concrete. And it also
shows that heat resistance was 133 C. Heat resist-
ance will show better performance if raw epoxy
resin is selected. With these results, the material
had the performance suitable for practical use.
If a curing agent is not used, the epoxy resin can be
used in the liquid state. Therefore, a liquid neutron
shielding material may be made. However, various
investigations such as material separation for long
time duration are needed.
An activation experiment was also carried out at
the JRR-4 nuclear reactor installed at JAERI (Japan
Atomic Energy Research Institute). Although the
 NEUTRON SHIELDING MATERIAL
detailed result is under analysis, it shows a lower
value than normal concrete and limestone concrete.
The result will be reported later.
REFERENCES
1. Valenzano, M. P. Neutron Measurements in the
V icinity of a Self-Shielding PET Cyclotron. Thesis,
Georgia Institute of Technology, 1998.
2. Davis, H. S. High Density Concrete for Shielding
Atomic Energy Plants. Journal of the American
Concrete Institute, 54(5), 965–977 (1958).
3. Yarar, Y. and Bayulken, A. Investigation of neutron
shielding efficiency and radioactivity of concrete
261
shielding containing colemanite, J. Nucl. Mater.
1720–1723 (1994).
4. Report, Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation
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5. Miura, T., Hirao, Y., Kanai, Y., Ishida, T., Odano, N.
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6. Los Alamos National Laboratory. Monte Carlo
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