Determination of attenuation coefficients of some wood materials based on thickness and chemical composition

The variation of linear attenuation coefficients with the densities of different samples is investigated in this paper. For this study, different types of soft wood and hard wood samples were collected from the Pakal forest area of the Warangal district, Andhra Pradesh, India. The linear and mass attenuation coefficients of different wood samples are measured using gamma ray spectrometry based on NaI(Tl) scintillation detector at the gamma ray energies of 661.6 and 59.5 keV. The experimental values of mass attenuation coefficient are compared with that of XCOM data based tool. Figures show the variation of mass attenuation coefficients of wood materials against the absorber thickness (number of mean free paths). From the numerical values, it is inferred that the large thickness of the samples reduces the scattered photons reaching the detector by decreasing the scattering angle. (author)