Analysis of different shielding materials for a new Interventional Radiology laboratory : a Monte Carlo approach

In this work, the shielding of a new laboratory, located at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), was evaluated. Several scenarios containing an interventional radiology (IR) equipment were simulated, with the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of wall shielding using different materials. These scenarios were modeled using the Monte Carlo method to evaluate the shielding effectiveness of the walls, using a x-ray spectra of 150 kV. To simulate the workers, public and the patient, six water cylinders were employed. The evaluations were based on the absorbed energy in each phantom and compared with the patient phantom. The results show that the laboratory is safe and does not represent risks for the academic community, presenting all safety parameters for facilities that have radioactive sources.