FABRICATION, TESTING AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYETHYLENE-BASED THERMOPLASTIC COMPOSITE MATERIALS FOR RADIATION SHIELDING

摘要

Polyethylene is a hydrogen rich polymer and has been used in making composite materials for radiation shielding. It has also been shown that the radiation shielding properties of polyethylene is enhanced through the incorporation of multifunctional nanostructured materials into the matrix of the polymer. In this study, multifunctional composites based on boron nitride and boron carbide added to Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) were prepared and physically tested for their radiation shielding capabilities. The goal is that if a multifunctional material composed of these constituents is found to have advantageous properties in areas besides radiation shielding, i.e. structural or mechanical properties, their deviation from pure polyethylene in terms of radiation shielding properties is not sufficiently great enough to preclude their use. FLUKA radiation transport code were used to simulate radiation effects on these composites. In addition to their radiation shielding capacity, mechanical properties of these composites were also investigated at both room and cryogenic temperatures. It was observed that the addition of boron carbide caused the flexural properties of the composites to degrade while there was no observable change in mechanical properties with the addition of boron nitride. Dynamic mechanical analysis on these composites also showed similar trend.