PNNL

Abstract

Lung phantoms have been manufactured using commercially available, plastic foam products. Some of these plastics are no longer available, therefore, a new lung phantom material was developed. The elemental composition and radiological properties of the new material are described in this paper. Because the lung material will be used to manufacture phantom lungs that will be used to evaluate chest counting systems, it is necessary to know the radiological properties of the material. Those properties must be compared with reference materials and materials that have been used for lung phantoms in the past. The radiological properties of interest include the electron density, mean excitation energy, electron stopping power, and photon mass attenuation coefficients. In all these properties, the new lung material closely matched the properties of Reference Man lung tissue and the ICRU lung tissue. Good agreement was also found when the new material was compared with the Griffith lung material described by the ICRU. The new material was determined to be an excellent lung tissue substitute.