An Experimental Gamma-ray Emission Computed Tomography System for Intensity Mapping of An Isotropic Sealed Source

Abstract

At present, demands for measurement in industrial process control is advancing to another level, from one-dimension profiling to two- and three-dimension imaging technique. These advancements empowered and assisted in providing more information on the ongoing processes. For industrial process flow study, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) system, can produce a cross-sectional image of the radioactive source distribution inside a vessel or pipeline. However, an optimum number of measurements is required to reconstruct the cross-section image without compromising or reducing the information on the reconstructed image. In this study, a time average emission computed tomography system was set up and utilised for mapping the intensity of the gamma-ray radiation from a static Barium, Ba-133 isotropic sealed source. The gamma-ray radiation source was placed on the centre and off-centre of the scanning region. Sodium Iodide, NaI scintillation detector then measure the intensity of the gamma-ray (emitted from the radioactive source) at a different angle. The data of gamma-ray intensity distribution were analysed, and the tomographic image of it was reconstructed using the Filtered Back Projection (FBP) algorithm. Although the SPECT system used is a time-average measurement, the tomographic image result is useful for the development of real-time industrial SPECT system that will be used for the imaging system in industrial process control.