Tungsten for radiation shielding use

Interesting! I'm designing the flight computer/electronics of a 2U cubesat for academia, and something like this might work really well for our application. We were considering borated polyethylene but the cost for that is prohibitive. This is perhaps not as efficient in terms of mass-to-protection ratio, but we have plenty more room in our mass budget instead of actual budget. I also like the idea that we may be able to mold this material around particularly sensitive elements of our system like the memory devices, to which neutrons are the biggest hazard.

Note that it's 75% by weight, not volume, which is about 15% by volume. A little disappointing.

75% by weight sounds like a lot of tungsten...<p>But it is only 15% by volume... So to the casual observer, this material is mostly plastic.

This material has radiation shielding properties far worse than just lead - lead which is cheaper and easier to manufacture<p>Pure tungsten on the other hand is very good and can even shield beta particles

this sounds more entertaining for 3-d printing things that startle people by being staggeringly heavy rather than things that are actually useful<p>it should be heavier than lead; lead is only 11.3 g&#x2F;cc, tungsten is 19.3, 75% tungsten would be 14.5, but then the other 25% is petg with sp.gr. ≈ 1 so you should actually get a density of 14.7<p>but i struggle to imagine cases where using tungsten is a more cost-effective option than using lead and making the object 9% bigger? they cite &#x27;various medical applications&#x27; but tungsten isn&#x27;t exactly ideal for permanent body contact either<p>oh actually they say it&#x27;s 75% tungsten by <i>mass</i>, not volume, so it&#x27;s only 4 g&#x2F;cc, and so its attenuation (at 140keV) is only 18% of lead&#x27;s (by volume)<p>copper might be an alternative that is less toxic than lead and less expensive than tungsten

Might be interesting to print grip modules for firearms (Sig does the &quot;TXG&quot; series which are tungsten-infused polymer, used for adding mass within the defined shape&#x2F;volume for competitive shooting&#x2F;recoil reduction reasons. Due to the design of the firearm, the grip module is just an accessory and not a firearm and thus not regulated, at least under US law. Being able to print custom shapes would be cool. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sigsauer.com&#x2F;p320-x-series-txg-grip-module-assembly.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sigsauer.com&#x2F;p320-x-series-txg-grip-module-assem...</a>)

That is actually so useful for me, wow. We prototype in lead, which is a pain from an OHS perspective. This would make life a lot eaiser, without the cost of tooling to get moulding nylon&#x2F;tungsten parts made.

- <i>&quot;The calculated HVL for Prusament PETG Tungsten 75% is 1.402 mm (orange mark). For comparison, the HVL for pure lead is 0.256 mm, HVL for pure tungsten is 0.191 mm.&quot;</i><p>Err, they make it sound like ordinary lead is the best choice? The article&#x27;s point is that additive manufacturing is a workaround for tungsten&#x27;s difficult material working properties. But: lead foil, you can simply bend it with your hands, into any shape you want. And apparently it&#x27;s much thinner.

<i>In other words: you need less tungsten than lead to get similar shielding results.</i><p>But the tungsten costs <i>many</i> times more, and is also much harder unlike lead which is soft and easily worked, which is why radiation shielding is still overwhelmingly made of lead. In applications where its toxicity is a problem, it&#x27;s used encapsulated inside another inert material.

I bought a 1kg tungsten cube

Tungsten has the highest melting point of any pure metal, I believe, as well as being close to the highest atomic number among the non-radioactive metals. It&#x27;s also reasonably workable as a material, isn&#x27;t terribly toxic, and has a reasonable availability and price.<p>The other high-melting metals near it in the periodic table all fall down on one or more of those properties. Osmium, for instance, is rather expensive, mined in only very small quantities, and reacts with air to form highly-toxic osmium tetroxide.

Neat. If I was in dentistry or oncology I&#x27;d print a tungsten apron like a suit of armour for kids, or perhaps a nice comfy&#x2F;adjustable thyroid collar which isn&#x27;t too tight or tall. With filament at $230 a kilo it might not be economically feasible but it sure would look cool.

I printed a hat. Works great for the silent radio waves that the government uses to control your mind.