MRI shielding design is an important feature of the modern MRI suite

By ahhb
Monday, 16 March, 2015

In the rush to make the MRI suite look attractive it is of paramount importance that the fundamental technical requirements are adhered to.

But it seems that these very important and critical issues are being overlooked.
The important issues for MRI shielding include the quality and longevity of the Faraday cage itself.
Faraday almost exclusively uses copper shielding for medical applications and MRI shielding.
Copper shielding will last for more than 20 years when installed in a tried and proven system which is used by Faraday. This is from known data.
Furthermore, copper provides the highest conductivity. High conductivity is important because the imaging equipment generates currents in the shield and this need to be conducted back to earth efficiently to avoid image artifacts.
Additionally, during construction, it is absolutely necessary to control the electrical isolation of the shield. This is to ensure that there is only one earth for the shield, again to control the currents that will be present in the shield. This may seem minor, but if the shield is inadvertently earthed during construction, rectification is very expensive. Alternatively, if not detected, which is often the case, poor image quality can be forever present.
Testing the shield on completion is also important. Customers are encouraged to witness this test. Some shielded rooms that have been poorly built could never have passed the initial RF commissioning test. Users suffer image quality or interference issues as a result. Faraday uses high quality calibrated test and we encourage witness testing.
Many MRIs require magnetic shielding to ensure the extent of the magnetic field generated by the MRI is contained within a specified area. The calculation for the extent of the magnetic field for a particular installation is both complex. Normally this is undertaken by the MRI vendor for their particular magnet. However Faraday can provide a multi magnet solution to accommodate any magnet.
Faraday the surest solution by any measure