Abstract: While nuclear technology is widely used in medicine, radiation protection is becoming more and more important. X-ray protective clothing could provide patients and healthcare workers with direct protection, in which the radiation shielding performance directly determines the protection efficiency. Integrity testing of X-ray protective clothing made of conventional lead-containing materials using digital radiography (DR) can visualise whether the clothing is defective. According to the IEC 61331 standard, conditions for the measurement of lead equivalent of narrow beam X-rays were established, and some X-ray protective clothing was selected for the measurement of the lead equivalent at defect-free and defect areas. The results show that the actual lead equivalent of the selected X-ray protective clothing is greater than or equal to the nominal lead equivalent in the majority of the cases, while the lead equivalent at the defect areas of the clothing is reduced to different degrees.

Key words: X-ray protective clothing, narrow-beam geometry, lead equivalent