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Title: X-Ray Cargo Inspection: Status and Trends

Abstract

Over the past several years, x-ray cargo inspection has experienced tremendous growth. There are several hundred systems in use world wide and a few new units are installed every week. Fielded systems are mostly located in north and West Africa, Middle East, Europe (especially Russia), East Asia, and South America. The majority of systems are powered by Varian M3, M6 or M9 Linac x-ray sources. The spatial resolution of these systems is typically 3-5 mm, penetration ranges from around 200 mm to 450 mm of steel and contrast sensitivity is typically 1-4%. Inspection throughput ranges from about 20 trucks per hour to 200 trucks per hour. Currently the systems are primarily used to fight import tax evasion and smuggling of controlled substances. There are a few clear trends: Imaging performance has been steadily improving; a variety of systems have been developed to fit different needs; also, there is a strong effort in material discrimination, or even identification and automatic detection. The last, but not least trend is a shift to security applications. The US government has launched major efforts such as CAARS and JINII to fight nuclear threat and systems that can automatically detect a small amount of high atomicmore » number materials are being developed. This paper only covers RF linear accelerator based X-ray sources, which prevail in the industry. Induction accelerators (Betatrons) have some limited use in low-end imaging systems and high duty factors sources have recently been proposed for study.« less

Authors:
; ; ; ;  [1]
  1. Varian Medical Systems, Security and Inspection Products, 6811 Spencer Street, Las Vegas, NV 89119 (United States)
Publication Date:
OSTI Identifier:
21289597
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
AIP Conference Proceedings
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 1099; Journal Issue: 1; Conference: CAARI 2008: 12. international conference on application of accelerators in research and industry, Fort Worth, TX (United States), 10-15 Aug 2008; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3120101; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 0094-243X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS; ATOMIC NUMBER; BREMSSTRAHLUNG; CARGO; DETECTION; INSPECTION; LINEAR ACCELERATORS; PERFORMANCE; RF SYSTEMS; SECURITY; SENSITIVITY; SPATIAL RESOLUTION; X RADIATION; X-RAY SOURCES

Citation Formats

Gongyin, Chen, Bjorkholm, Paul, Fox, Timothy R, Wilson, Zane, and Bonsergent, Xavier. X-Ray Cargo Inspection: Status and Trends. United States: N. p., 2009. Web. doi:10.1063/1.3120101.
Gongyin, Chen, Bjorkholm, Paul, Fox, Timothy R, Wilson, Zane, & Bonsergent, Xavier. X-Ray Cargo Inspection: Status and Trends. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3120101
Gongyin, Chen, Bjorkholm, Paul, Fox, Timothy R, Wilson, Zane, and Bonsergent, Xavier. 2009. "X-Ray Cargo Inspection: Status and Trends". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3120101.
@article{osti_21289597,
title = {X-Ray Cargo Inspection: Status and Trends},
author = {Gongyin, Chen and Bjorkholm, Paul and Fox, Timothy R and Wilson, Zane and Bonsergent, Xavier},
abstractNote = {Over the past several years, x-ray cargo inspection has experienced tremendous growth. There are several hundred systems in use world wide and a few new units are installed every week. Fielded systems are mostly located in north and West Africa, Middle East, Europe (especially Russia), East Asia, and South America. The majority of systems are powered by Varian M3, M6 or M9 Linac x-ray sources. The spatial resolution of these systems is typically 3-5 mm, penetration ranges from around 200 mm to 450 mm of steel and contrast sensitivity is typically 1-4%. Inspection throughput ranges from about 20 trucks per hour to 200 trucks per hour. Currently the systems are primarily used to fight import tax evasion and smuggling of controlled substances. There are a few clear trends: Imaging performance has been steadily improving; a variety of systems have been developed to fit different needs; also, there is a strong effort in material discrimination, or even identification and automatic detection. The last, but not least trend is a shift to security applications. The US government has launched major efforts such as CAARS and JINII to fight nuclear threat and systems that can automatically detect a small amount of high atomic number materials are being developed. This paper only covers RF linear accelerator based X-ray sources, which prevail in the industry. Induction accelerators (Betatrons) have some limited use in low-end imaging systems and high duty factors sources have recently been proposed for study.},
doi = {10.1063/1.3120101},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/21289597}, journal = {AIP Conference Proceedings},
issn = {0094-243X},
number = 1,
volume = 1099,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Mar 10 00:00:00 EDT 2009},
month = {Tue Mar 10 00:00:00 EDT 2009}
}