High Energy Computed Tomographic Inspection of Munitions

Inspection system provides additional level of quality assurance for R&D, reverse engineering, and malfunction investigations.

Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey

An advance computed tomography (CT) system was recently built for the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ, for the inspection of munitions. The system is a charged coupled device (CCD) camera based CT system designated with the name “eXperimental Imaging Media” (XIM). The design incorporated shielding for use up to 4MeV x-ray photons and integrated two separate cameras into one single field of view (FOV). Other major distinguishing characteristics include its processing functions to digitally piece the two cameras together, use of advanced artifact reduction principles, performing reconstruction simultaneously during acquisition, and its development in accurate beam hardening corrections through digital means.

The overall setup of the system, as shown, depicts the internal layout of the cameras, shielding, scintillation screen, and rotational fixture. The general layout is comparative to a common 16-bit CCD camera radiographic imaging system. The x-ray photons pass through the inspection piece and impinge onto a scintillation/phosphor screen where the energy is converted into visible light. From there, the light is redirected off a series of mirrors that allow the cameras to be out of the direct line of sight of the main radiation beam. The light is then focused through the camera lens and into a cooled CCD chip.