Effects of Gadolinium in Fe based amorphous ribbons with high boron contents on the neutron shielding efficiency

Highlights: • Fe based amorphous ribbons with large amounts of B have been developed. • The effect of Cr additions in amorphous alloy ribbon samples are confirmed. • The amorphous ribbons with the Gd contents less than 1 at.% have good flexibility. • The sample named CRRB exhibited neutron shielding efficiency of around 86%. - Abstract: Fe based amorphous alloys with high boron and gadolinium contents have been developed through a systematic alloy design technique for neutron shielding applications. Amorphous ribbons with the Gd content up to 10 at.% were prepared by a melt-spinning method and used as reinforcements within polyester matrix and concrete matrix, respectively. Excellent neutron shielding efficiency about 75% was obtained from the polyester hexahedron composites (5 cm × 5 cm × 1 cm) including only 1 vol% ribbon with the composition of Fe₇₂B₁₅Mo₃Gd₁₀. Moreover, a concrete composite (φ 10 cm × 5 cm thick) in which the amorphous ribbons with the composition of Fe₇₂B_24.5Mo₃Gd_0.5 were uniformly distributed exhibited neutron shielding efficiency of around 86% demonstrating the applicability of amorphous ribbons as reinforcements in various composites for neutron shielding facility constructions.