PET Shielding

Ever wonder what goes into shielding for a PET imaging facility?

No? Well, I’m going to show you anyway.

First you need to find a Qualified Medical Physicist (like me) to develop a shielding design for you. The shielding design gets turned into a set of blueprints for the lead contractor to work with.

Shielding blueprint

Then you need lead. Lots and lots of it.

Lead bricks
Lead lined plywood sheets


This is a layer of 1/4″ thick lead sheet lining the floor. The strips cover up the seams between the lead sheets so that there are no gaps. Depending on what’s underneath, the floor may require as much as 1″ of lead.

Floor shielding
Lead sheet used for floor shielding

For the walls, you’ll need stacks of 1/4″ or 1/2″ lead sheet attached to 3/4″ plywood, like these

Lead wall sheets

Thinner lead sheets are usually glued to drywall, but that doesn’t quite cut it for the thicknesses required for PET shielding.

The lead/plywood sheets go up like this

Lead/plywood wall

The sheets are also interlocking to eliminate the gap between sheets

Interlocking lead joints in the plywood wll

Depending on what’s on the other side of the wall, you’ll need bricks too. This is a stack of 1″ interlocking bricks. Sometimes your wall might even need up to 2″ thick bricks.

Stack of lead bricks

This is what the brick wall ends up looking like

Lead brick wall

The bricks are screwed into the metal studs for support. Thicker brick walls require additional support and are usually constructed between two sets of studs.


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