Session
2025 Session 5
Location
Brigham Young University Engineering Building, Provo, UT
Start Date
5-5-2025 11:10 AM
Description
Radiation shielding is a common method used to protect spacecraft from the radiation prevalent in the space environment. A current research area of interest is Z-graded shielding, which is radiation shielding composed of various materials layered together based off of the properties associated with the material's atomic number, Z. This approach has the potential to produce new shielding materials that would be lighter and more compact than traditional shielding materials. Utah State University's Material Physics Group developed an experimental setup and analysis methodology to quantify how effectively novel shielding materials blocked beta and gamma radiation. The materials' effectiveness, termed shielding efficiency, was compared to the shielding efficiency of aluminum samples that were the thicknesses commonly used for spacecrafts. The methodology allows for calculation of the beta radiation shielding efficiency of the novel materials at any thickness. A graphical determination of shielding efficiency was developed to handle the complexities of the gamma testing.
A Methodology to Quantify the Shielding Efficiency of Novel Radiation Shielding Materials
Brigham Young University Engineering Building, Provo, UT
Radiation shielding is a common method used to protect spacecraft from the radiation prevalent in the space environment. A current research area of interest is Z-graded shielding, which is radiation shielding composed of various materials layered together based off of the properties associated with the material's atomic number, Z. This approach has the potential to produce new shielding materials that would be lighter and more compact than traditional shielding materials. Utah State University's Material Physics Group developed an experimental setup and analysis methodology to quantify how effectively novel shielding materials blocked beta and gamma radiation. The materials' effectiveness, termed shielding efficiency, was compared to the shielding efficiency of aluminum samples that were the thicknesses commonly used for spacecrafts. The methodology allows for calculation of the beta radiation shielding efficiency of the novel materials at any thickness. A graphical determination of shielding efficiency was developed to handle the complexities of the gamma testing.