<title>Single-sided tomography of extremely large dense objects</title>

Abstract

One can envision many circumstances where radiography could be valuable but is frustrated by the geometry of the object to be radiographed. For example, extremely large objects, the separation of rocket propellants from the skin of solid fuel rocket motor, the structural integrity of an underground tank or hull of a ship, the location of buried objects, inspection of large castings etc. In our laboratory I have been investigating ways to do this type of radiography and as a result have developed a technique which can be used to obtain three dimensional radiographs using Compton scattered radiation from a monochromatic source and a high efficiency, high resolution germanium spectrometer. This paper will give specific details of the reconstruction technique and present the results of numerous numerical simulations and compare these simulations to spectra obtained in our laboratory. In addition I will present the results of calculations made for the development of an alternative single sided radiography technique which will permit inspection of the interior of large objects.