Development of a neutron tomography system for industrial applications

Tomography with neutrons offers unique capabilities because neutrons can penetrate metals even several centimeters in thickness quite easily. Their special sensitivity to organic materials, especially water, make them an ideal tool for the non-destructive inspection of industrial components. Neutron tomography has the potential to measure spatial features of an object with an accuracy of a few millimeters and density contrast to within a fraction of the volume. A good spatial resolution can only be obtained when the neutrons are from strong sources, mainly high-power nuclear reactors. High-grade tomography systems require the investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars, with costs often hindering the initiative for new tomography set-ups. In this paper, we developed a less expensive system based on a 1 MW low-power nuclear reactor and standard components that is perfectly capable of doing tomography with moderate spatial resolution and an adequate signal-to-noise-ratio. The key feature of this success is the specific combination of software for image reconstruction and hardware for data acquisition. As a first example illustrating the potential applications of the new set-up, we show an image of water build-up or flooding in a dry cell.