Effect of the number of projections in X-ray CT imaging on image quality and digital volume correlation measurement

Abstract

Digital volume correlation (DVC) quantifies internal 3D displacement and strain fields by correlating the volume images of a tested object acquired at different states. When using X-ray CT-based DVC, the number of projections is a key parameter that affects the acquisition time and quality of reconstructed volumetric images, and therefore the precision and temporal resolutions of DVC measurement. More projections result in high-quality volume images for DVC calculation but longer acquisition time and pronounced thermal drifts of the X-ray source. Few projections lead to quicker acquisition and fewer thermal drifts, but may degrade image quality and thus induce larger DVC measurement errors. Selecting an appropriate number of projections during CT imaging is therefore of practical significance for DVC measurement. To solve this dilemma, the effect of the number of projections on DVC measurements with X-ray CT is experimentally investigated in this work. First, numerically simulated speckle volume images with different numbers of projections were reconstructed by using FDK (Feldkamp) algorithm, and the influence of the number of projections on DVC measurement was analyzed. Then, real rescan and compression experiments performed on a copper foam sample were carried out to further study the effect of projection number on DVC measurements. Both simulation and real experiments show that more projections result in longer imaging time but higher quality volume image and DVC measurement. DVC measurement errors decrease with the increase of projections at different decline rates. Therefore, an appropriate number of projections can be specified based on the results according to the requirements of DVC measurement precision and temporal resolution. For the specific X-ray CT device used in this real compression experiment, 36 ∼ 60 projections are suggested to balance measurement precision and temporal resolution, and more than 720 projections are necessary for pursuing higher accuracy.