Physics Procedia最新文献

Spectroscopic neutron Bragg-edge imaging was performed to study a lithium-ion battery (LIB) product. This non-destructive neutron imaging method is suitable for the evaluation of industrial products, but presents some difficulties for application to multicomponent products. The LIB includes a strong neutron scatterer and an absorber, and is thus a suitable test case for the use of neutron imaging in actual product measurement. In this study, we analyzed the variation of the graphite anode structure with changes in the battery charge level. The experiments were carried out using the compact neutron source at the Hokkaido University neutron source facility (HUNS). To eliminate the effect of scattered neutron contamination, we first determined the distance between the sample and detector required to reduce this effect to under 1%. Using this separation, the charge level dependence of the anode structure was measured. The graphite {002} Bragg-edge could be recognized on the neutron transmission spectra. The Bragg-edge was shifted and broadened with increasing battery charge. The edge was consistent with the existence of multiple graphite structural stages. The layer spacing distribution images for different charge levels showed the inhomogeneous fluctuation on the LIB lattice plane. Based on the images the fraction of the graphite structural stages were analyzed. The ratio of each stage varied with the charge level, and the ideal intercalation structure, in which the graphite layers are stuffed with Li-ions, was found to be minor in the final charging state.

Most neutron imaging systems use a neutron sensitive scintillation screen and camera. Due to the highly exothermic nature of the detection reaction, many thousand photons are produced for one detected neutron. If an additional image intensifier is used, the signal generated by very few neutrons may saturate the camera without delivering sufficient neutron statistics to examine a neutron radiography sample. This article takes a look at the signal chain for neutron radiography and tries to give some help for estimating required statistics and exposure times.

The Illinois Accelerator Research Center (IARC) hosts a new accelerator development program at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. IARC provides access to Fermi's state-of-the-art facilities and technologies for research, development and industrialization of particle accelerator technology. In addition to facilitating access to available existing Fermi infrastructure, the IARC Campus has a dedicated 36,000 ft² Heavy Assembly Building (HAB) with all the infrastructure needed to develop, commission and operate new accelerators. Connected to the HAB is a 47,000 ft² Office, Technology and Engineering (OTE) building, paid for by the state, that has office, meeting, and light technical space. The OTE building, which contains the Accelerator Physics Center, and nearby Accelerator and Technical divisions provide IARC collaborators with unique access to world class expertise in a wide array of accelerator technologies. At IARC scientists and engineers from Fermilab and academia work side by side with industrial partners to develop breakthroughs in accelerator science and translate them into applications for the nation's health, wealth and security.

The radiocarbon concentration is reduced in urban areas, generally due to high CO₂ emissions derived from fossil fuels. In this paper, new Δ¹⁴C measurements in cellulose extracted from the growth rings of two trees over a 43-year period are presented. The first is in a zone with clean air (El Nayar, Durango, Mexico) and the second is from the Greater Mexico City area (Chapultepec). Data from El Nayar is consistent with that reported for Zone 2 of the Northern Hemisphere while that from the urban area shows a significant decrease in Δ¹⁴C. Our results are compared with data from other cities (Nagoya, Japan and Valladolid, Spain).

The Colorado School of Mines installed a neutron radiography system at the United States Geological Survey TRIGA reactor in 2012. An upgraded beamline could dramatically improve the imaging capabilities of this system. This project performed computational analyses to support the design of a new beamline, with the major goals of minimizing beam divergence and maximizing beam intensity. The new beamline will consist of a square aluminum tube with an 11.43 cm (4.5 in) inner side length and 0.635 cm (0.25 in) thick walls. It is the same length as the original beam tube (8.53 m) and is composed of 1.22 m (4 ft) and 1.52 m (5 ft) flanged sections which bolt together. The bottom 1.22 m of the beamline is a cylindrical aluminum pre-collimator which is 0.635 cm (0.25 in) thick, with an inner diameter of 5.08 cm (2 in). Based on Monte Carlo model results, when a pre-collimator is present, the use of a neutron absorbing liner on the inside surface of the beam tube has almost no effect on the angular distribution of the neutron current at the collimator exit. The use of a pre-collimator may result in a non-uniform flux profile at the image plane; however, as long as the collimator is at least three times longer than the pre-collimator, the flux distortion is acceptably low.

For the neutron phase imaging with a Talbot-Lau interferometer, we have fabricated neutron absorption gratings with a pitch of 9 μm by oblique evaporation of gadolinium. The performances of these gratings for the phase measurement were experimentally evaluated at RADEN in J-PARC, by observing the neutron transmission and the visibility of moiré fringe in the interferometer. A new analysis method using the wavelength-resolved neutron transmission was also attempted to estimate the characteristics of gratings.

Nanotubular titanium oxide coatings with different morphology and dimensional parameters are formed by anodic oxidation under different voltage and time modes in fluorine aqueous-nonaqueous electrolytes containing glycerin as well as several surface-active agents (SAA). Their morphological peculiarities are examined and qualitative and quantitative analysis of obtained types of ordering is carried out, geometric configuration entropy are calculated on the base of analysis SEM images and theory of self-organization.

We have calculated the local density of states (LDOS) for four Brillouin zones of a superlattice for a plane source depending on its location relative to the change in the profile of dielectricpermeability ɛ(z) of the superlattice. It is shown that the LDOS for the cases of sinusoidal and rectangular profiles of ɛ(z) are close to each other in the first and second Brillouin zones, and sharp differences between them appear beginning with the third zone. Radical changes in the LDOS occur in a rectangular superlattice with different thicknesses of adjacent layers. In this case, the function LDOS has a sharp jump at the edges of the allowed bands in the transition from one layer to another. The effects studied theoretically in this paper, can be detected and studied experimentally by the intensively developing currently methods of nanooptics.

A vision and spectroscopic system for estimation of the joint gap width in autogenous laser beam butt welding is presented. Variations in joint gap width can introduce imperfections in the butt joint seam, which in turn influence fatigue life and structural integrity. The aim of the monitoring approach explored here is to acquire sufficiently robust process data to be used to guide post inspection activities and/or to enable feedback control for a decreased process variability. The dual-sensing approach includes a calibrated CMOS camera and a miniature spectrometer integrated with a laser beam tool. The camera system includes LED illumination and matching optical filters and captures images of the area in front of the melt pool in order to estimate the joint gap width from the information in the image. The intensity of different spectral lines acquired by the spectrometer has been investigated and the correlation between the intensity of representative lines and the joint gap width has been studied. Welding experiments have been conducted using a 6 kW fiber laser. Results from both systems are promising, the camera system is able to give good estimations of the joint gap width, and good correlations between the signal from the spectrometer and the joint gap width have been found. However, developments of the camera setup and vision algorithm can further improve the joint gap estimations and more experimental work is needed in order to evaluate the robustness of the systems.

The European project entitled “effective Container inspection at BORDer control points” (C-BORD) focuses on the development and in-situ tests of a comprehensive cost-effective solution for the generalized Non-Intrusive Inspection (NII) of containers and large-volume freight at the European Union (EU) border. It copes with a large range of targets, including explosives, chemical warfare agents, illicit drugs, tobacco and Special Nuclear Materials. Within the C-BORD project, a new generation of Tagged Neutron Inspection System (TNIS) for cargo containers is foreseen. Unlike its predecessors, this system would be the first Rapidly Relocatable TNIS (RRTNIS). It will be a second-line defense system, to be used on sealed containers in order to detect explosives, illicit drugs and chemical agents in a suspect voxel (elementary volume unit).

We report on the status of the RRTNIS system, in particular the overall design, the characterization of the large-volume NaI(Tl) gamma detectors, the digital analysis of the time measurements and the Data Acquisition System (DAQ).