The Effect of Experiment Variables on Industrial X-ray Micro-computed Tomography Sensitivity.

A study was performed on the effect of experimental variables on radiographic sensitivity (image quality) in X-ray micro-computed tomography images for a high-density thin wall metallic cylinder containing micro-electrical discharge machining holes. Image quality was evaluated in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) discontinuity detectability, and feature sharpness. The variables included: day-to-day reproducibility, current, integration time, voltage, filtering, number of frame averages, number of projection views, beam width, effective object radius, binning, orientation of sample, acquisition angle range (180 to 360°), and directional versus transmission tube. This paper presents a tabular summary of the findings. In most, but not all cases, SNR, discontinuity detectability, and feature sharpness changed as expected/predicted with changing X-ray parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]