New applications of 10 MeV electrons for reeled goods

Because of their high penetration capability, electron beams produced by 10 MeV machines are increasingly used for the sterilization processing of medical devices. Worldwide there are already more than 20 such machines in action for this purpose. But compared with electron beam sterilization, the physical crosslinking of plastic products with 10 MeV has not been as much investigated as in the range of low and medium energy. So the products with high wall thickness or big dimensions are still chemically crosslinked as the penetration and power of the beam of existing accelerators was not sufficient for those products. But now radiation crosslinking is possible also for higher dimensions of reeled goods due to higher beam power up to 150 kW, and one machine with different handling systems can be used for sterilization and modification of plastic products. The aim of our work is to examine the homogeneous crosslinking of industrial products by a 10 MeV/150 kW electron beam as for instance for XLPE-c pipes and heat shrinkable tubes. Furthermore the uniformity of crosslinking especially along the roundness is measured, which is one of the essential quality characteristics. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.