Comparison of Experiments and Simulations to Estimate Deviations in Lead Equivalent in Radiation-Protection Devices

• Published in: Annals of the Romanian society for cell biology Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 999 - 1006
• Main Authors: Han, Dong-Hee, Won, Jong-Hun, Lee, Seung-Jae, Baek, Cheol-Ha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Arad "Vasile Goldis" Western University Arad, Romania 01.01.2021
• Subjects: Cellular biology; Energy; Experiments; Medical equipment; Medical personnel; Medical research; Monte Carlo simulation; Radiation; Radiation protection; Sensors
• ISSN: 2067-3019; 2067-8282

Radiation-protection devices are important medical equipment that can protect the human body from scattered radiation, and are commercially available in various shapes and lead equivalents depending on the target area and energy used by medical personnel, practitioners, and patients. Concern persists over the non-uniformity of lead equivalent in devices that determine the degree of shielding to the human body, and the resulting difference in radiation penetration is not known. [...]in this study, radiation-protection devices with lead equivalents of 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00 mmPb, which are widely sold on the market, were set to unit-thickness deviations of 0.02, 0.02, 0.03, and 0.05 mmPb, respectively, in an environment where they were exposed to the photo energy range of diagnostic contexts. After fixing the distance between the source and the detector to 100 cm (Figure 3), the default values for lead equivalent at 0 mmPb (when lead sheet was not taken into account) were measured first, and density (11.34 g/cm3), size (10 x 10 cm2, overlapping with lead sheets of 0.03 mm-0.05 mm thickness), and average values for lead equivalent were recorded three times from the same structure. 3.Results and Discussion The radiation penetration rate by unit of thickness deviation from the reference lead equivalent of the radiation-protection devices was compared and analyzed between the experimental and GATE outputs, and the results were normalized for each reference lead equivalent. [...]tube voltage at 120 kV yielded increases in penetration rates of 11.3%, 15.0%, 27.8%, and 38.6% for experiments and 7.8%, 16.3%, 25.7%, and 35.9% for GATE simulations.