Abstract This work aimed to investigate ionizing radiation shielding features of zirconia silicate SiO2-Na2O-CaO-xZrO2 (SCNZ) glass system. The mass attenuation coefficients (MAC, μ/ρ) were generated by FLUKA Monte Carlo simulation code and the obtained data verified via the calculated data of XCOM software over an extended photon energy range of 0.015 – 20 MeV. The obtained value of μ/ρ have been used to evaluate several effective attenuation features such as half value layer (HVL), mean free path (MFP), effective atomic number (Zeff), and effective electron density (Neff). Results reveal that μ/ρ, MFP, HVL, Zeff and Neff parameters of the investigated glasses strongly depend on photon energy and chemical composition. Additionally, by using G-P fitting parameters, the exposure buildup factor (EBF) and energy absorption buildup factor (EABF) of the investigated glasses were calculated. Results show that the greatest values of buildup factors exhibit at higher energies for all glass samples. Finally, the values of fast neutron removal cross section (ΣR) and the kinetic energy loss rate (Mass Stopping Power, MSP) of alpha and protons passing through the studied glasses were evaluated. The results display that insertion of ZrO2 improved the nuclear security capability of SCNZ glasses. Especially, SCNZ7 glass owns superior shielding ability for charged particles as well as gamma radiation.