Industrial Radiology Techniques

Industrial radiography is a well-established non-destructive testing (NDT) method in which the basic principles were established many years ago. However, during 1993-95 the European Standards Organisa tion (CEN) commenced drafting many new standards on NDT including radiographic methods, and when completed these will replace national standards in all the EC member countries. In some cases these standards vary significantly from those in use in the UK at present. These CEN standards are accepted by majority, not unanimous voting, so they will become mandatory even in countries which vote against them. As most are likely to be legal by the time this second edition is published, they are described in the appropriate places in the text. The most important new technical development is the greater use of computers in radiology. In the first edition, computerized tomography was only briefly mentioned at the end of Chapter 11, as it was then largely a medical method with only a few equipments having found a place in industrial use. The method depends on a complex computer program and a large data store. Industrial equipments are now being built, although their spread into industry has been slow. Computer data storage is also being used for radiographic data. Small computers can now store all the data produced by scanning a radiographic film with a small light-spot, and various programs can be applied to these data.

In the United States there are several thousand devices containing high-activity radiation sources licensed for use in areas ranging from medical uses such as cancer therapy to safety uses such as testing of structures and industrial equipment. Those radiation sources are licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state agencies. Concerns have been raised about the safety and security of the radiation sources, particularly amid fears that they could be used to create dirty bombs, or radiological dispersal device (RDD). In response to a request from Congress, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission asked the National Research Council to conduct a study to review the uses of high-risk radiation sources and the feasibility of replacing them with lower risk alternatives. The study concludes that the U.S. government should consider factors such as potential economic consequences of misuse of the radiation sources into its assessments of risk. Although the committee found that replacements of most sources are possible, it is not economically feasible in some cases. The committee recommends that the U.S. government take steps to in the near term to replace radioactive cesium chloride radiation sources, a potential "dirty bomb" ingredient used in some medical and research equipment, with lower-risk alternatives. The committee further recommends that longer term efforts be undertaken to replace other sources. The book presents a number of options for making those replacements.

While books on the medical applications of x-ray imaging exist, there is not one currently available that focuses on industrial applications. Full of color images that show clear spectrometry and rich with applications, X-Ray Imaging fills the need for a comprehensive work on modern industrial x-ray imaging. It reviews the fundamental science of x-ray imaging and addresses equipment and system configuration. Useful to a broad range of radiation imaging practitioners, the book looks at the rapid development and deployment of digital x-ray imaging system.