I printed a hat. Works great for the silent radio waves that the government uses to control your mind.
Don't let this troll fool you. Tin-foil hats only work when they're made of tin; not tungsten, not aluminium or aluminum, only tin.
Tungsten for radiation shielding use
21–30 of 65 posts
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#2275% by weight sounds like a lot of tungsten... But it is only 15% by volume... So to the casual observer, this material is mostly plastic.
Ah, that explains why its radiation blocking is so much worse tham pure tungsten!
If you could manufacture Tungsten powder with spherical particles (rather than sharp pointed particles), I bet they could have far more tungsten in there and still have it 3d print effectively. Perhaps up to 50% by volume (95% by weight)
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#23Tungsten 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's also reasonably workable as a material, isn't terribly toxic, and has a reasonable availability and price.
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.
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, if you want to shield a wall or container or something you will just slap lead on it, but this could be used for complex shielding of sensitive components in nuclear machinery and devices. Machining hard materials is extremely expensive and difficult (exotic material cutters or edm, with slow high precision grinding).
lead isn't a hard material, and if you need a hard material, this filament isn't what you're looking for either; it will be almost as fragile as pure petg
I didn't say it was hard. I said machining tungsten is hard. Machining lead is also difficult and weird and the end result can be barely usable for anything, especially in hot environments or with any load. It's just not good.
If you need complex parts, this could be an excellent choice.
Idk what the confusion here is. Maybe you are unfamiliar with machining?
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#25In other words: you need less tungsten than lead to get similar shielding results. But the tungsten costs many 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's used encapsulated inside another inert material.
Sure, if you want to shield a wall or container or something you will just slap lead on it, but this could be used for complex shielding of sensitive components in nuclear machinery and devices. Machining hard materials is extremely expensive and difficult (exotic material cutters or edm, with slow high precision grinding).
Lead shielding is usually applied in sheets; and due to its low melting point, it can also be cast as a layer on other machined parts on applications where sheets are more difficult to use.
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#26Interesting! 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 abl…
I'm pretty sure Tungsten and borated polyethylene are best at shielding against different types of radiation. Dense materials like tungsten and lead are ideal for blocking gamma rays and x-rays, while borated polyethylene is better at blocking neutrons.
Depending on your environment and the sensitivities of what you're shielding, you might need one or the other, and possibly both.
Disclaimer: I'm not a nuclear physicist. I learned this while researching for a hard-sci-fi novel I'm working on.
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, if you want to shield a wall or container or something you will just slap lead on it, but this could be used for complex shielding of sensitive components in nuclear machinery and devices. Machining hard materials is extremely expensive and difficult (exotic material cutters or edm, with slow high precision grinding).
Lead shielding is usually applied in sheets; and due to its low melting point, it can also be cast as a layer on other machined parts on applications where sheets are more difficult to use.
so machine a die, machine your part, build random fixtures, cast lead on to your part...
or just print it?
It's a bit of a no brainer.
Even if you just want a shielding layer, the convenience of this will win out on low volume parts.
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#28I printed a hat. Works great for the silent radio waves that the government uses to control your mind.
Don't let this troll fool you. Tin-foil hats only work when they're made of tin; not tungsten, not aluminium or aluminum, only tin.
They also need to be grounded, if they're only in contact with you they're an antenna.
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#29This material has radiation shielding properties far worse than just lead - lead which is cheaper and easier to manufacture
Pure tungsten on the other hand is very good and can even shield beta particles
Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use
#30Note that it's 75% by weight, not volume, which is about 15% by volume. A little disappointing.