The Use Of Different Radiation Shielding Materials
Many different materials are present that offer protection against harmful radiations of radioactive material. It is possible to select a material depending upon the use.
It is important to have the best protection against the harmful radiations like x-rays, gamma rays and several other rays of high frequency that are harmful for humans and other living as well as non living objects. All the nuclear reactions of the radioactive materials give put different rays that are very harmful. This is the reason why it is important to use the different radiation shielding materials that are available. These materials provide protection against these rays by acting as a shield and absorbing the harmful radiations. Some of the materials are expensive in comparison to the others. Some materials are more effective than the others. In addition, there are some materials that find their use in some applications were it is not possible to use other material depending upon the properties of the material.
The most basic shielding material for most of the nuclear reactors is concrete. It is used in protecting buildings. Therefore, it forms the outer body of the reactor. The body of this material prevents the radiations from penetrating from the surface. This is the reason why many reactors have a thick layer of concrete. Thus, all the radiations stay within the walls of the reactor and they do not come out. However, in comparison to other materials, the thickness that concrete requires to prevent these radiations from penetrating it is very high. This is the reason why some applications use other materials like lead to act as a shielding for these rays. One such material is lead.
We do not require the layer of lead to be as thick as the layer of concrete. It is amongst the best materials for the purpose of shielding. It finds it application in the medical field as the shielding plates against radiations like x-rays. There are many other objects of lead that provide protection against the radiations. Workers in the reactors use objects like gloves of lead for their protection. There are many other Radiation Shielding Materials available these days like mercury, tungsten, polybrominated diphenyl ether and many others. They completely or partially absorb the harmful radiations thus, minimizing their effect.
Author Resource:
The Author is a professional writer, presently writing for X Ray Shielding.
Processing your request, Please wait....
