Improving the Density of Functional Fabrics to Protect Radiation Workers in Radiology Departments

In medical institutions, the high weight of shielding clothing restrains the activities of medical workers. Although lightweight shielding clothing is being manufactured to solve this problem, the weight can only be reduced by 10%–20%. Flexible shielding fibers are mainly used to minimize activity restrictions; however, it is difficult to maintain the reproducibility of shielding performance. When weaving fibers with a yarn that contains a shielding material, the content of the shielding material in the yarn, tensile strength, and problems encountered during weaving should be considered. Therefore, in this study, a high-density shielding fabric weaving process was developed to weave a functional shielding fabric for actively utilizing it for low-dose shielding. The yarn was manufactured using 5 wt% barium sulfate, and the shielding performance was evaluated using the existing plain weave and two fabrics that underwent the newly developed high-density twill weave process. As a result of the experiment, the density of the fabric woven by the twill method increased by 82 g/m³, documenting a difference of 7.46% in the high-energy region and 11.71% in the low-energy region, thus indicating that the Twill method improves the shielding effect. Therefore, it is possible to mass produce lightweight, high-density shielding fabric that can protect against scattered rays that represent the main source of radiation in medical institutions.