Acquisition of a CT Scanner for Research in Engineering and Sciences at Montana State

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601567 Brown A compute tomography (CT) X-ray scanner will be purchased for the purpose of expanding the capabilities of several research projects either currently in progress at Montana State University or being considered for new research directions. Areas of research include studies on (1) metamorphism of alpine snow and changes in microstructure of snow, (2) long term metamorphism of Antarctic firn, (3) micromechanics of sea ice and non-saline ice, relationship between microstructure and mechanical properties of granular materials, (4) damage effects in composite materials, and (5) studies of lake ice in Antarctica. In addition, the acquisition of the scanner will open up the strong possibility of establishing long-term cooperative studies with Japanese scientist, particularly with the National Center for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NEID) for snow, ice and polar firn research. The scanner is a transportable system which would enable it to be moved to remote sites for field investigations. With a total weight of approximately 1000kg, the scanner incorporates an industrial quality Seifert constant potential x-ray source and a detector utilizing a CDD with 1024 X 1024 pixels and a 12 bit resolution (4096 grey scales). Also included are a Pentium computer to control the scanner, a color printer, a backup digital tape lead shielding to qualify the system as a radiation-free environment. It has the capability of scanning slices as thin as 0.1 mm and has a spatial resolution as small as 10 um for those instances where very small details need to be studied. Courses taught in the Engineering college intend to use this instrument to evaluate internal structure of materials. These courses included both undergraduate and graduate courses in materials science and soils mechanics. ***