The heterogeneous radiation shield for spacecrafts

The paper deals with modeling of elemental composition and properties of heterogeneous layers in multilayered shields to protect spacecraft onboard equipment from radiation emitted by the natural Earth’s radiation belt. This radiation causes malfunctioning of semiconductor elements in electronic equipment and may result in a failure of the spacecraft as a whole. We consider four different shield designs and compare them to the most conventional radiation-protective material for spacecraft - aluminum. Out of light and heavy chemical elements we chose the materials with high reaction cross sections and low density. The mass attenuation coefficient of boron-containing compounds is 20 % higher than that of aluminum. Heterogeneous shields consist of three layers: a glass cloth, borated material and nickel. With a protective shield containing heavy metal the output bremsstrahlung can be reduced. The amount of gamma rays that succeed to penetrate the shield is 4 times less compared to aluminum. The shields under study have the thicknesses of 5.95 and 6.2 mm. A comparative analysis of homogeneous and multilayered protective coatings of the same chemical composition has been performed. A heterogeneous protective shield has been found to be advantageous in weight and shielding properties over its homogeneous counterparts and aluminum. The dose characteristics and transmittance were calculated by the Monte Carlo method. The results of our study lead us to conclude that a three-layer boron carbide shield provides the most effective protection from radiation. This shield ensures twice as low absorbed dose and 4 times less the number of penetrated gamma-ray photons compared to its aluminum analogue. Moreover, a heterogeneous shield will have a weight 10 % lighter than aluminum, with the same attenuation coefficient of the electron flux. Such heterogeneous shields can be used to protect spacecraft launched to geostationary orbit. Furthermore, a protective boron-containing and nickel coating can be deposited onto a finished housing frame of space equipment.