Development of a Lightweight Tungsten Shielding Fiber That Can Be Used for Improving the Performance of Medical Radiation Shields

Radiation exposure in medical institutions is mainly due to low doses. Low-dose radiation mainly means scattered radiation, and such scattered radiation can be shielded with a lightweight shielding suit. In this study, the shielding performance of shielding fabrics woven by winding polyethylene (PE) yarn around a 30 μm tungsten wire was evaluated. To improve the shielding performance, an air pressure dispersion process of coating tungsten nanopowder on the fiber was developed. The radiation shielding effectiveness of the shielding fibers with and without dispersed tungsten nanopowder were compared by measuring the spatial dose inside the diagnostic X-ray imaging room of a medical institution. The results of the experiment confirmed that the fabric coated with tungsten nanopowder improved the shielding performance of the general tungsten fiber by approximately 15% and provided relatively effective low-dose radiation shielding at approximately 1.2 m of the X-ray imaging equipment. This study shows that tungsten fiber can be helpful in manufacturing lightweight shielding clothing for protection from scattered radiation in medical institutions.