An Assessment of Improving Protective Garments for DD Activities

摘要

The purpose of this work is to assess the feasibility of incorporating an innovative shielding material within radiation protective garments. The calculations show that the proposed radiation shield material is better than lead in terms of gram/cm~2 for higher energy (hard) gamma ray spectrum and comparable to lead for a soft gamma ray spectrum. This material also provides very effective shielding against neutron radiation. The proposed material has very good physical characteristics (such as flexibility) that make it easier to work with and handle than lead. Unlike lead, the proposed material is nontoxic and requires no special or restrictive condition for disposal. The actual garment design is strongly dependent on the radiation environment to which D&D workers would be exposed. The preliminary analysis shows that it is possible to reduce the radiation dose rates by 20% to 50%, for a very hard radiation spectrum to a more moderate one, and the working time can be extended up to a factor of two.