Synchrotron-based, high resolution computed tomography

The development of energetic chemical systems, such as propellents and explosives, would benefit greatly from the availability of new inspection techniques which could image materials with micron-level resolution. Benefits of such a capability would include the ability to nondestructively examine samples in three dimensions at high resolution; obtain spatially resolved chemical element maps; examine void and filler-particle size and distribution; and make particle size and homogeneity maps and/or histograms. Work in the one micron range is often performed at synchrotron facilities, usually at energies and/or fluxes which are restrictively low. An initial effort to extend synchrotron-based microtomogrphy to sample sizes and scan times of practical value for the characterization of energetic materials has recently been completed. This program designed and implemented a layered-synthetic-microstructure (LSM) monochrometer to enhance by more than an order of magnitude the radiative flux available for imaging. This increased flux was traded for increased radiation energy and faster scan times. The results of this work are reported in this paper