The effect of tungsten particle sizes on X-ray attenuation properties

Equipment used for personal radiation protection, which consists of polymeric materials with radiopaque powder additives, may cause serious ergonomic problems because of their heavy weights. In this study, X-ray attenuation of the materials developed by using nano and micro sized tungsten particles were experimentally measured in accordance with medical x-ray standards and additionally evaluated with Monte Carlo simulations. It has been observed that materials with nanoparticles reach higher radiation protection values compared to the samples with micro sized powders, although they have the same weight ratios of additive powders. Moreover, the experimental studies showed that while the difference between radiation attenuation of micro and nano sized materials is higher at low energies (30 kV), it decreases at high energies (80 kV and 100 kV). When the simulation results and experimental results were compared, it was seen that the experimental data converged to the simulation results with the decrease of the average particle size. As a result, it can be said that light-weight materials that can provide the same protection can be developed by using nanoparticles, hence obtaining more uniform structures.