Investigations of effective attenuation coefficients (EACs) of multi-layered polymers using Monte Carlo method

In the present study, a Monte Carlo model has been developed to compute the EACs of some multi-layered materials, especially polymers for the first time. Different mono-energetic gamma rays with energy range between 59.5 and 1332.5 keV were considered to accomplish this goal. A comparison was made between the simulation results and those derived from a theoretical formula based on available measured attenuation coefficients and data taken from the XCOM program. A highly agreement was achieved. This study shows an improvement over Al-Arif an Kakil's work, in the sense that the modified model is appropriate enough to estimate the EACs within +/- 1.5%. It was indicated that changing the order of the materials did not vary the results significantly. The results showed that the proposed model can be used to determine radiation properties of multi-layer polymers in cases where no analogous experimental data exist or it is expensive to test.