X-ray tomography system for industrial applications

X-ray radiography and tomography are two of the most used non-destructive testing techniques both in industrial and cultural heritage fields. However, the inspection of heavy materials or thick objects requires X-ray energies larger than the maximum energy provided by commercial X-ray tubes (600 kV). For this reason, and owing to the long experience of the INFN-Gruppo Collegato di Messina in designing and assembling low energy electron linacs, a 5 MeV electron linac based X-ray tomographic system has been developed at the Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Messina. The X-ray source, properly designed, provides a 16 cm diameter X-ray spot at the sample position, and a beam opening angle of about 3.6 degree. Optimization of the parameters influencing the e-γ conversion and the X-ray beam characteristics have been studied by means of the MCNP-4C2 (Monte-Carlo-N-Particle, version 4C2) code. The image acquisition system consists of a CCD camera and a scintillator screen. Preliminary radiographies and tomographies showing the high quality performances of the tomographic system have been acquired. Finally, the compactness of the accelerator system is one of the advantages of the discussed tomography device which could be made transportable.