Improving neutron and gamma flexible shielding by adding medium-heavy metal powder to epoxy based composite materials

Epoxy resin is cheap, flexible, durable and abundant material. Within this framework, it is a very useful option in a comprehensive application field. In this paper, neutron shields based on epoxy based composite materials were studied by adding different percentages of additive materials as Fe (Iron), Bi (Bismuth), Ta (Tantalum) and WC (Tungsten Carbide). GEANT4 and FLUKA simulation codes were applied simulating and comparing the interactions of 4.5 MeV 241Am-Be neutrons and 1.25 MeV 60Co source energetic gamma rays with the different specific materials. The best shielding performance results were obtained with the Tantalum-Epoxy sample but all the studied samples demonstrate a good quality as neutron and gamma shielding, when compared to previous results found in literature. Implications of neutron and gamma bombardment were also discussed in the view of a large usage fields. •Improving flexible metal powder filled epoxy composite radiation shields.•Epoxy/ Fe, Bi, Ta, WC composites were designed by GEANT4 and FLUKA codes.•Simulations were applied for 4.5 MeV neutrons and 1.25 MeV gamma rays.•Epoxy/Ta composite has high shielding performance for neutrons and gamma rays.•Composites are high quality neutron and gamma shields as compared to the literature.