Life sciences, e.g. plant research, cochlear research.
Advanced materials, e.g. additive-manufacturing, fibre-reinforced & carbon-epoxy composites, light-alloy development. In the case of additive manufacturing samples, it is possible to obtain valuable information on surface morphology as a function of the build direction and the size and complexity of the design.
Biomedical applications, e.g. osteocyte lacunae in bone, response of bone to load & tensile testing.
Earth & environmental sciences, e.g. volcanic product/ash.
Fuel science, e.g. effects of production methodology for coal/coke samples.
Petroleum industry, e.g. quantifying micro-porosity in rocks & shales (pore-size distribution, shape, connectivity and tortuosity).
Non-destructive characterisation, e.g. fossil in amber.
Dynamic studies, e.g. observation of the evolution of metallic foams.
Demonstration of X-ray micro-tomography of coal fragment in small Eppendorf tube (OD ~ 10mm) acquired during the hot commissioning phase of MCT Beamline with the following detail: White beam with heavy in vacuo filtration (0.2 mm diamond, 5 mm Al & 0.5 mm Cu); Optique Peter white-beam detector system with 1X objective (located at ~23 m from source); sample is mounted on general-purpose air-bearing CT stage on table B1 located at ~21.5 m from source; 30 flat fields & 30 dark currents are collected at start & finish, 1801 images collected over 180 deg in 0.1 deg steps – “step-&-shoot” mode – exposure time per frame 20 msec – total collection time ~100 min (less than 40 sec exposure time for all frames); total data size ~20 GB – file format TIFF.
X-ray phase-contrast images (11 keV monochromatic with 5X objective lens) collected at MCT beamline: (a) an insect, (b). fibrous paper (c). an eucalyptus leaf. Phase contrast is clearly present in these images (manifesting itself as black-white fringes enhancing edge structure in particular).
Phase-retrieved tomography result for an insect inside small Eppendorf tube (ID ~ 5mm). (a). 3D rendering of the reconstruction data, (b). 3D colour segmentation using Dragonfly software. The data was collected using 12.7 keV monochromatic (Ru/C stripes), in vacuo filtration – 0.2 mm diamond, with 1X objective lens in the imaging detector, 1.5 m sample to the detector distance, 1801 images collected over 180 deg in 0.1 deg steps, 30 flat fields & 30 dark currents, “step-&-shoot” mode – exposure time per frame 40 msec – total collection time ~100 min – total data size ~19 GB – file format TIFF. TIE-Home phase retrieval was applied on the projection images before 3D reconstruction.
Slice reconstruction of wood structure (toothpick) without TIE-Hom phase retrieval in (a) and with TIE-Hom phase retrieval in (b) with the 3D visualization of the (b) in (c). Data was taken using white beam, in vacuo filtration – 0.2 mm diamond, 5 mm Al, 0.1 mm Cu, using 20X objective lens, 1201 number of projections, 100 flats & 100 darks, sample-detector distance of 160 mm, exposure time of 0.7 s.
Carbon fibre sample, tomography reconstruction using MCT pipeline, data presentation using Dragonfly software