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Tungsten for radiation shielding use

blog.prusa3d.com

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Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#31

Post by dylan604 »

defrost wrote: post #16
picture wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea! We do have 3 DoF magnetorquers on board, but I feel like the difference between shield on and shield off might need a very sensitive and directional detector..

It's a timing thing - Australia used a "we built it ourselves" detector with shielding that rotated about the crystal pack to find that missing mining source that hit the news last month. The detector part (doped crystals + scintillation sensors) is fundamentally undirectional - those pesky gamma come in from any direction. One side has to be shielded to bias the reading (use Tungsten perhaps) .. and by rotating the…

>As alway, have a fiddle with a ground based setup first.

now see, if we do that, then you're ruining the one chance I have of being the exact right person to go to space to fix the thing.

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#32

Post by elromulous »

RobotToaster wrote: post #30

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

Kind of makes sense though. Tungsten is quite dense. It can probably get prohibitively expensive pretty fast. Not to mention difficult to flow the material / keep hot the more tungsten you add.

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#33

Post by proto_lambda »

theelous3 wrote: post #24
kragen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The first sentence of your comment was structured like this: [reason to use lead], but [reason to use tungsten]. At least I expected the second sentence to expand on the pros of tungsten, when in fact it was about the pros of lead; interpreting it as the former would mean lead is a hard material.

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#36

Post by iancmceachern »

sniperjoe360 wrote: post #29

This 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

Yeah but it's lead! Lead isn't a very friendly thing to just have around.

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#37

Post by iancmceachern »

londons_explore wrote: post #22
kristianp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

You can get that. https://micronmetals.com/product/tungsten-carbide-powder-sph...

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#38

Post by francisduvivier »

londons_explore wrote: post #18

75% 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.

But its more than 3 times as dense as PETG still. 1kg of PETG makes is 300+ meter of filament, while 1kg of this stuff is only 100 meter.

So I think the casual observer would notice that. But also means with thar price per KG.

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#39

Post by rdl »

londons_explore wrote: post #19
rdl wrote: post #11

Might be interesting to print grip modules for firearms (Sig does the "TXG" series which are tungsten-infused polymer, used for adding mass within the defined shape/volume for competitive shooting/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. ( https://ww…

The density is only 4 g/cm³. You'd likely do better just machining it out of steel (5g/cm³, and much cheaper)

The 3D printers which can do metal (metal forge, etc) are incredibly expensive (100k+). I was thinking about custom to hand 3D printed grip modules, qty 1. Machining a grip module out of metal requires tools and skills beyond 3D printing, too. There are also some slight performance advantages of a polymer frame (grip module, in this case) over a metal frame.

Re: Tungsten for radiation shielding use

#40

Post by perihelions »

- "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."

Err, they make it sound like ordinary lead is the best choice? The article's point is that additive manufacturing is a workaround for tungsten's difficult material working properties. But: lead foil, you can simply bend it with your hands, into any shape you want. And apparently it's much thinner.

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