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Description
Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA) is a joint interdisciplinary research center from Universidad de Sevilla, Junta de Andalucía and CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) open to external users. CNA has six different facilities, namely: a 3 MV Pelletron tandem accelerator, an 18/9 MeV Cyclotron accelerator, a 1 MV mass spectrometer accelerator, a PET/CT scanner, a 200 kV radiocarbon dating system, and a Co-60 irradiator. In addition, a Mo x-ray tube is available for cultural heritage studies, among other uses.
Radiography is a non-destructive imaging technique that uses the attenuation of penetrating radiation passing through a sample to study its internal structure. Although the term usually refers to x-rays, different kinds of radiation can be used as a probe. Each type of radiation features different mechanisms of interaction with matter, revealing different structures and properties of an object. Therefore, the combined information from different types of radiographies of a given object provides a more complete knowledge about said sample.
This work presents the commissioning of a mobile imaging setup at CNA with the capability of combining four different radiography types taking advantage of the different facilities available at the center: fast neutron radiography, thermal neutron radiography, gammagraphy, and conventional x-ray imaging. Among these, fast neutron imaging is the only technique that is not yet commercially available despite having great interest in industry due to the high penetration range and the possibility of contrast under strongly shielded objects.
At CNA, acceptable quality images in exposures of several minutes can be obtained, distinguishing between different materials and different thicknesses of the same material and resolving millimetric structures. Furthermore, since 2021, neutron and gamma tomography are also available, complementing the flexibility of this setup with volumetric information of a sample. This new feature consolidates the imaging techniques as a new tool at CNA, with widespread use in industry and research, particularly interesting for cultural heritage applications.