The Custom lead Shielding Products for Radiation Shielding Applications.
Often a specific radiation shielding application will require that standard lead shielding components be further machined or finished to meet exact specifications. This may involve machining the lead products into custom shapes or may involve a custom or finer finish to a part.
In this third article regarding Nuclead radiation shielding expertise, we describe the company’s custom fabrication, machining and finishing capabilities.
Nuclead’s custom radiation shielding products
As well as being the largest wholesaler of radiation shielding products in the North Eastern USA, Nuclead has extensive manufacturing and machining capabilities that allow for the fabrication of any custom lead shielding products.
Our custom precision lead services include mold fabrication and pours, 3D and CNC machining, stamping and cutting, welding and lead assembly, lamination and PSA adhesive application. All our processes are governed by ISO 9001:2015, accredited quality control practices.
Many of the world’s finest companies and universities have used Nuclead lead machining capabilities. Programming capabilities include the latest in CAD/CAM software in both 2D and 3D.
Lead assemblies – Radiation shielding requirements for equipment such as MRI machines require the fabrication of complete assemblies that consist of multiple components including lead shielding, aluminum housings and many other components assembled per custom drawings. Various processes are involved in the building of these custom lead assemblies, including lead lamination, joining via lead adhesives or lead welding, lead stamping, lead machining, and lead cutting.
Lead, aluminum, other metals and weldments are fabricated and then assembled together in accordance with blueprints supplied by the customer. The finished assembly can be plated, powder coated or painted and then delivered ready to be assembled into the final product.
A CATSCAN machine is a good example of this type of assembly, and Nuclead has extensive experience in building this type of complex radiation shielding product. The MRI machine is a large piece of equipment that allows a patient’s body to scanned using both magnetic fields and radio waves. It is necessary to provide radiation shielding as part of the machine construction.
This type of sophisticated lead shielding component is required both protect the patient from excessive radiation and to shield the equipment from extraneous local interference caused by cell phones, computers or other types of equipment.
Nuclead has many years of experience building these kinds of sophisticated items and has all the necessary capabilities in house.
Lead laminates – Lead sheets are typically laminated to a supporting base via the use of pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA). Nuclead laminates lead sheet or machined lead items to any component per customer specifications. Whether fabricated by us or customer supplied, climate controlled facilities will ensure that the correct temperature and humidity is maintained to ensure the highest quality bond.
Machined lead bricks – In certain applications it is important that the lead bricks are properly machined and finished to a high quality. Particularly for high energy radiation shielding and gamma ray blocking, where the nuclear bricks must be able to be stacked with no gaps. Often high energy radiation bricks are machined to have tongue and grooves on four edges to allow the lead bricks to be interlocking.
Nuclead is expert at machining radiation shielding bricks to high quality finishes and to custom configurations. For example Nuclead has shipped tons of lead bricks for radiation environments to state universities, machined in custom shapes and sizes to meet specific radiation shielding needs.
Another example is the Department of Energy requirements for machined radiation bricks to high tolerance and finish specifications.
Lead Welded products – Nuclead welds lead items with any alloy, with any diameter wire required.
Nuclear casks – are heavily radiation shielded lead containers that are used to store and/or transport highly radioactive materials such as spent nuclear fuel rods. Nuclear casks are typically cast from lead pours in order to ensure a continuous container. Radiation casks are designed to maintain integrity under hypothetical crash conditions and are thus tested to withstand crush damage, fire, water and puncture.
Nuclead has lead pouring capacity of up to 100,000 pounds and can have the finished nuclear casks examined with gamma ray inspection, to ensure integrity. Nuclead will typically manufacture the lead cask molds per customer drawings and specifications and will pour the molten lead to meet the specified radiation shielding needs.
Conclusion
Nuclead can provide value added finished radiation shielding products to custom specifications, for both sample quantities or production quantities
This is the third article in series about Nuclead’s Lead shielding capabilities. The previous articles described standard lead shielding products and the large inventory of radiation shielding products available to ship to order.