Experimental facility for integrated digital radiography and tomography imaging for NDT and E applications

Penetrating radiation based electronic imaging technology provides a suitable alternative to the conventional film based radiography employed for non-destructive testing and examination in industrial sector. Digital Industrial Radiography (DIR) and Industrial Computed Tomography (ICT) are gaining ever-increasing acceptance as a supplementary NDT/NDE tool despite their limited conformity, at present, to standard codes and guidelines. The paper highlights the development of an integrated imaging facility for digital radiography and tomography for research applications at Isotope Applications Division (IAD), BARC. IAD has long been active in the research and development activities in the field of advanced radiation based imaging for industrial applications and previously demonstrated indigenous efforts in X-ray and gamma ray based tomographic imaging systems for various applications. The imaging system discussed in the present paper makes use an amorphous silicon (aSi)-GOS based flat panel 2D X-ray detector (FPD) and associated sub-systems. ICT is as such a complex computational imaging modality and the development cycle has provided the team members an opportunity to buildup expertise in this area. It may be stressed here that the work carried out so far was primarily aimed at technology and know-how development indigenously for various applications. (author)