Abstract A new neutron shielding composite was fabricated by homogenous dispersion of gadolinium oxide in the epoxy resin. It was found that the addition of Gd₂O₃, up to 2% has a positive effect on the tensile strength of the epoxy matrix so that its strength reached 44.5 MP with 3.1% elongation rate. This is despite the fact that according to the FTIR and XRD results, Gd₂O₃ and epoxy preserved their chemical natures in the matrix. The addition of Gd₂O₃ also enhanced the thermal resistance of the epoxy matrix, as it was evidenced by the TGA analysis. The neutronic shielding performance of the fabricated composite was evaluated by both experiments and simulation. The new composite offers appreciable neutronic absorption so that its sample with 4 cm thickness and 10% Gd₂O₃ content captures 70% of the incident neutrons. The accuracy of the MCNP code in the simulation of neutronic data of our sample was noticeable, and it was around 13.5% on average.
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Safavi et al. (2024) studied this question.
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