For this demonstration system, we shall use a commercial x-ray tube designed for field inspection of pipe welds. Based on the above, we recommend using approximately 100 to 200 watts at the x-ray tube. With the vehicle forward motion, this creates a raster scan of the ground. Since the vehicle moves over irregular terrain, we cannot use its wheels to measure the forward motion accurately. Instead, we suggest a simple phase sensitive radio signal method employing two small, fixed transmitters positioned for optimal location discrimination.
All components are readily available or fabricated.
There are a variety of industrial material diagnostic situations which are inadequately approached by existing NDI techniques which should be investigated using the LMR technique. Large welds and castings are such situations. In addition, geometrically organized imperfections such as could occur in composite materials, or surface coatings provide application situations where the individual variations would be impossible to image, but the collective effect on x-ray lateral migration could be significant and measurable. Large atomic number variation, such as in some cases of corrosion, if resulting in spatially ordered pathways for x-ray transport are additional examples of such application.