Wenyun Luo

A new lead-free radiation shielding material for radiotherapy

Lead has recently been recognised as a source of environmental pollution, including the lead used for radiation shielding in radiotherapy. The bremsstrahlung radiation caused by the interaction between the electron beam and lead may reduce the accuracy of radiotherapy. To avoid the use of lead, a new material composed of tungsten and hydrogenated styrene-butadiene-styrene copolymer is studied with the Monte Carlo (MC) method and experiment in this paper. The component of the material is chosen after simulation with the MC method and the practical measurement is taken to validate the shielding ability of the material. The result shows that the shielding ability of the new material is good enough to fulfill the requirement for application in radiotherapy. Compared with lead alloy, the present new material is so flexible that can be easily customized into arbitrary shapes. Moreover, the material is environmentally friendly and can be recycled conveniently. Therefore, the material can be used as an effective lead substitute for shielding against electron beams in radiotherapy.

A novel shielding scheme studied by the Monte Carlo method for electron beam radiotherapy.

AbstractLead that has been employed widely for shielding in electron beam radiotherapy can produce bremsstrahlung photons during the shielding process. A novel shielding scheme with a two-layer structure has been studied using a Monte Carlo method in order to reduce this bremsstrahlung effect. Compared with the conventional lead, the novel shielding scheme, comprised of a Styrene-Ethylene-Butylene-Styrene Block Co-polymer (SEBS) above and lead below, can efficiently reduce the generation of bremsstrahlung while providing better shielding for incident electrons. Therefore, this novel shielding scheme may play an important role in future applications.

M-C simulation of shielding effects of PE, LiH and graphite fibers under 1 MeV electrons and 20 MeV protons

Shielding effects of different materials under 1 MeV electron and 20 MeV proton beams were simulated with Geant4 code. It was found that shielding effects of polyethylene and graphite fibers are much better than aluminum. Energy depositions in the phantom shielded by the materials are calculated, with the least energy deposition by graphite fiber shielding. The results show that graphite fibers are good radiation shielding material in space programs.

Energy loss caused by shielding effect of steel cage outside source tube

Abstract The energy loss, produced by shielding effect of steel cage outside the source tube, is quite considerable. With PENELOPE software package, MC results have been obtained based on the simulation of different source conformations. The result illustrates that the naked source tubes can improve the utilization ratio of the cobalt facilities. It demonstrates the applied value of the naked source tube in engineering.

Shielding calculation for the thickness of the SR facility safety shutter

Abstract The safety shutter of the SR (synchrotron radiation) facility located at the front end of the facility is an indispensable component for radiation protection. Its thickness is decided by the gas bremsstrahlung produced in the SR facility storage ring by the interaction of electrons with the residual gas molecules in the vacuum chamber of the storage ring. In the calculation, the 3.5 GeV, 300mA electron beam and a 15 m long insertion-device straight section (0.133 μPa) were taken into account, and the safety shutter was assumed to be located 12 m away from the end of the straight section. The EGSnrc code based on the Monte-Carlo method and empirical formulas were used, respectively, to calculate the thickness to satisfy the shielding requirement of the safety shutter at the front end of the SR facility, and the results were compared and the availability of EGSnrc was proved.