Tungsten alloy leaf has high atomic coefficient and high density so that it has a strong ability to shield rays in a multi-leaf collimator. It has been reported that multi-leaf collimator with tungsten alloy leaf improves both the accuracy and the effectiveness of radiation therapy and reduces the time for every treatment dose, which potentially increases the number of patients treated every day. The multileaf collimator is presently an important technical tool either to replace conventional shielding for static conformational radiotherapy or to administer 3D-planned dynamic radiotherapy.

What is the working principle of tungsten alloy multi-leaf collimator? Let's begin with some pieces of information of multi-leaf collimator. Tungsten alloy multi-leaf collimator, which was developed to replace the traditional lead blocks, are used on linear accelerators to provide conformal shaping of radiotherapy treatment beams. And specifically, conformal radiotherapy and intensity modulated radiation therapy can be delivered using multi-leaf collimators. The multi-leaf collimator has movable tungsten alloy leaves to block some fraction of the radiation beam. Typically, multi-leaf collimators have 52-160 tungsten alloy leaves, arranged in pairs. So, what is the working principle of tungsten alloy multi-leaf collimator?

Tungsten alloy multileaf collimator firstly used tungsten alloy leaves to shape structures in 1965 and has improved rapidly to modern day operation in radiotherapy. Tungsten alloy multileaf collimators are now widely used and have become an integral part of any radiotherapy department as they have strong shielding performance against rays while ensuring high accuracy. A pair of tungsten alloy leaves can form a rectangular irradiation field, and multiple pairs of tungsten alloy leaves can be combined to form an irradiation field of any shape.

Tungsten alloy shaped charge liner is one of the key parts of the high explosive anti-tank warhead, whose performance will directly affect the quality of the jet. Tungsten alloy shaped charge liner has the advantages of high melting point, high density, high sound velocity, good ductility, and high jet velocity. Wherein, high density and good ductility ensure that the jet can be fully stretched without breaking before erosion. And high jet velocity can reduce the effectiveness of the reaction armor. However, such a shaped charge liner also has the disadvantages of lower total jet length and sensitivity to radial disturbances.

Tungsten alloy is the most proper material for core material of armor piercing shell. Why tungsten alloy has a wide application as the core material in armor-piercing projectile? Tungsten alloy has high strength and good toughness, and is easy to be processed into cores with large length and slenderness ratio to achieve a large penetration depth and high penetration efficiency. Also, it has good terminal ballistic power and acceptable cost.

Tungsten alloy warhead is well-known in military field now. You know, warhead is a very important component of armor-piercing projectiles, rocket projectiles, and missiles that can kill and destroy enemy weapons and equipment, facilities, and enemy effectives. Tungsten alloy is widely used in various warhead materials because of their unique properties, such as high density, high melting point, high strength, and good machinability.

Rocket projectile is usually composed of a warhead, a rocket engine, and a stabilizer. And tungsten alloy such as W-Ni-Fe or W-Ni-Cu alloy balls are used in the warhead of rocket projectile. It has been reported that the warhead of the dual-purpose cluster bombs in the WS-2 rocket projectiles adopt tungsten alloy material. Its attack accuracy is very high and the attack range can reach 360 kilometers.

Tungsten alloy has become a new type of shaped charge liner material with wide application prospects due to its high melting point, high density, high sound velocity, good ductility, and good machining performance. The components of tungsten alloy material for preparing shaped charge liner material include W-Ni-Fe, W-Ni-Cu, and the like.

Tungsten alloy shotgun bullet is small. Generally, there are some spherical projectiles. At that time, from the perspective of density and hardness, lead was considered a suitable material for shotgun bullet. However, shotguns are used for hunting animals. If toxic lead bullets are used, it seems that the hunted prey is not so “safe” for eating. While tungsten alloy is non-toxic, environmentally friendly and pollution-free, so it is developed to replace traditional heavy metal lead as the projectile material.

Tungsten alloy armor piercing shell, which consists of a tungsten alloy core encased in a jacket of copper alloy, is a type of ammunition designed to penetrate armor. Such an armor piercing shell is also known as a kinetic energy armor-piercing projectile. It has been reported that the core of the former West Germany’s 105mm armor piercing discarding sabot was made of tungsten alloy containing 95%W-3.4%Ni-1.6%Fe. Its density can reach about 18 g/cm3.