Development and characterization of a neutron tomography system based on image intensifier CCD system

A neutron tomography system has been developed using a low cost electronic imaging system which uses commercially available Image intensifrer, CCD, Frame grabber. This setup has been used for a series of experiments on neutron tomography at the 400 kW swimming pool type reactor APSARA which has a neutron flux of 10(6) n/cm(2)/s at L/D = 90. The main feature of this tomography system is integrated computer controlled imaging and stepper motor control system with online data acquisition, analysis and display of images for each projection angle. The density profile of the projection images and ray sum calculation can be carried out in offline or online manner at any slice and a series of reconstructed image for any slice can be obtained. An algorithm for reconstruction using Convolution Back Projection (CBP) technique has been developed and implemented on a Pentium system. The imaging system is modular in design. The reconstructed image has shown good quality and holes of less than 0.6 mm filled with wax can be revealed in a 60 mm aluminum matrix or 1 mm holes in 40 mm solid brass matrix have been resolved. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.