Image quality analysis of an industrial instant non-scanning tomography system with different collimators

Abstract

An instant non-scanning tomography system is being developed at the IPEN. This type of tomography system, due to its configurations, provides a low spatial resolution; however, it presents a high temporal resolution as an advantage. In this sense, it has high applicability in industrial processes involving dynamic multiphase processes, like distillation columns. Thereby, to obtain the best conditions of image acquisition, this tomography system comprising different collimators was simulated with Monte Carlo using the MCNP4C.The image quality was evaluated with Matlab® 2013b analyzing the contrast to noise ratio (CNR), root mean square ratio (RMSE), signal to noise ratio (SNR) and the spatial resolution by the Modulation Transfer Function (MTF(f)), to identify which collimator fits better to the tomography in development. It was simulated three situations; (i) with no collimator; (ii) ø 25x 50 mm2 cylindrical collimator with a septum of ø5.0 x 50 mm2; (iii) ø25 x 50 mm2 cylindrical collimator with a slit septum of 24 x 5.0 x 50 mm3. RMSE values for no collimator presented better results. CNR showed that no collimator and slit collimator reaches the same CNR values, but no collimator decreases more than the slit collimator as the number of iteration rises. The hole collimator reaches a higher CNR value, however decreases more than the others. The spatial resolution with no collimator and slit collimator were around 31.9 mm, and for the hole collimator was around 20 mm.