X-ray CT Facility

The X-ray CT Facility is part of the Experimental Geoscience Facility but operates as a Small Research Facility.

Grant Building. Rooms 1.127, 1.104. 3D and 4D non destructive materials and experimental microtomographic imaging. The X-ray µCT instrument was designed and built in-house to enable non-destructive 3D analysis of geological, biological and engineered materials and for experimental applications that require time-resolved imaging of processes from experiments carried out on-line and off-line. The instrument consists of a dual (transmission/reflection) head 10-160kV x-ray source, a rotary air-bearing able and sample manipulator, and dual flat panel X-ray cameras (1MP Perkin Elmer XRD0822 or 4MP Rad-Icon Shad-o-cam). Once acquired, tomographic slice reconstruction is performed using Octopus™ software and visualisation and analysis of 3D and 4D data is performed using dedicated workstations running Avizo™ software. Samples from 1 mm diameter to ~10 cm diameter and up to 4 kg can be accommodated. Typical best geometric image resolution is 1/1000 to 1/2000 of the sample diameter for the Perkin Elmer and Rad-Icon cameras respectively. Standard data acquisition requires 30 mins to 3 hours per scan. In addition to the instrument itself, the laboratory has developed and is continuing to develop X-ray transparent experimental environments to enable experimental studies of at elevated pressure and temperature (e.g. multiphase fluid flow in porous media, deformation and pressure solution). These environments are designed to be used both in house and at synchrotron and other beamlines (e.g. Diamond, Grenoble).