High power systems for dynamic field control and shielding in the MR environment

This thesis addresses several aspects of gradient and shim coil design and fabrication. New design techniques are coupled with experimental construction methods to expand small animal insert gradient and shim technology. The design techniques are also applied to other areas of magnetic resonance hardware. A custom 2-axis gradient insert coil is designed and fabricated for the purpose of eddy current characterization. The construction tolerances were examined via bench top inductance measurements and eddy currents measurement inside a 7.0 T head-only MR system. A great deal of freedom is available when positioning shielding coils with respect to their corresponding primary coils in small animal inserts before eddy currents become prohibitive for imaging. A new method for actively shielding electromagnets is presented. The minimum energy method for designing shielding coils of any geometry is developed and validated against historical methods. Several shielded gradient insert coils are designed, including a cylindrical gradient set with rectangular shields, which demonstrates the versatility of this new method. The performance of the shielded insert coils is reported. A high power custom shim insert coil is designed and optimized for dynamic shimming applications. This 10-axis shim insert coil is designed to operate at currents higher than any previously existing shim sets. Several experimental fabrication methods are tested during the construction of the insert coil. Inductance, resistance and cooling measurements are conducted and compared to design specifications. Field measurements are taken using a 3-axis field transducer and the shim efficiencies are calculated. Finally mutual inductance measurements are taken between strongly coupled axes to verify active shielding performance. Lastly, the minimum energy method for active shielding is applied to several MR fringe field type problems. Shields are designed to conform to rooms within an imaging facility for the purpose of controlling the magnetic footprint of an MR system. The MR room itself it designed to house an active shield, along with rooms adjacent to the MR room and a small equipment cabinet located inside the MR room is also fitted with a shield. The performance of the shields is calculated, and the feasibility of such shields is discussed

Hardware of MRI System

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is comprehensively applied in modern medical diagnosis and scientific research for its superb soft-tissue imaging quality and non-radiating characteristics. Main magnet, gradient assembly, and radio-frequency (RF) assembly are main hardware in an MRI system. The hardware performance has direct relationship with the ultimate system overall performance. The development of MRI system toward high magnetic field strength will acquire high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and resolution, and meanwhile the manufacture difficulty of main magnet, gradient assembly, and RF assembly will also be significantly elevated. This will make challenges on the design, materials, primitive device, and also the whole machine assembly. This chapter introduces the main hardware of the MRI system and corresponding functions and developments

Optimization of a boundary element approach to electromagnet design with application to a host of current problems in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has proven to be a valuable methodological approach in both basic research and clinical practice. However, significant hardware advances are still needed in order to further improve and extend the applications of the technique. The present dissertation predominantly addresses gradient and shim coil design (sub-systems of the MR system). A design study to investigate gradient performance over a set of surface geometries ranging in curvature from planar to a full cylinder using the boundary element (BE) method is presented. The results of this study serve as a guide for future planar and pseudo-planar gradient systems for a range of applications. Additions to the BE method of coil design are developed, including the direct control of the magnetic field uniformity produced by the final electromagnet and the minimum separation between adjacent wires in the final design. A method to simulate induced eddy currents on thin conducting surfaces is presented. The method is used to predict the time-dependent decay of eddy currents induced on a cylindrical copper bore within a 7 T MR system and the induced heating on small conducting structures; both predictions are compared against experiment. Next, the method is extended to predict localized power deposition and the spatial distribution of force due to the Lorentz interaction of the eddy current distribution with the main magnetic field. New methods for the design of actively shielded electromagnets are presented and compared with existing techniques for the case of a whole-body transverse gradient coil. The methods are judged using a variety of shielding performance parameters. A novel approach to eliminate the interactions between the MR gradient system and external, non-MR specific, active devices is presented and its feasibility is discussed. A completely new approach to shimming is presented utilizing a network of current pathways that can be adaptively changed on a subject-by-subject basis and dynamically controlled. The potential benefits of the approach are demonstrated using computer simulations and a prototype coil is constructed and tested as a proof-of-principle

Minimax Current Density Coil Design

'Coil design' is an inverse problem in which arrangements of wire are designed to generate a prescribed magnetic field when energized with electric current. The design of gradient and shim coils for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are important examples of coil design. The magnetic fields that these coils generate are usually required to be both strong and accurate. Other electromagnetic properties of the coils, such as inductance, may be considered in the design process, which becomes an optimization problem. The maximum current density is additionally optimized in this work and the resultant coils are investigated for performance and practicality. Coils with minimax current density were found to exhibit maximally spread wires and may help disperse localized regions of Joule heating. They also produce the highest possible magnetic field strength per unit current for any given surface and wire size. Three different flavours of boundary element method that employ different basis functions (triangular elements with uniform current, cylindrical elements with sinusoidal current and conic section elements with sinusoidal-uniform current) were used with this approach to illustrate its generality.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. To appear in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physic

Delta Relaxation Enhanced Magnetic Resonance

Generally speaking, targeted molecular Imaging has always been difficult to perform with magnetic resonance. The difficulty does not arise with the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique or equipment itself, but rather with the targeted contrast agents, which the method requires. Also referred to as activatable contrast agents, or MRI probes, targeted contrast agents are pharmaceuticals that will selectively bind to a particular biological (target) molecule. They are used to highlight a certain tissue or the difference between healthy and diseased tissue. Unfortunately, nearly all MRI probes are non-specific, causing localized increases in MR image intensity in both the unbound and target-bound states. Therefore, brightening in a conventional MRI image, following probe injection, does not positively indicate the presence of the target molecule. Herein, a novel method known as delta relaxation enhanced magnetic resonance (dreMR, pronounced dreamer ) is presented that utilizes variable magnetic field technology to produce image contrast related to the dependence of the sample\u27s longitudinal relaxation rates upon the strength of the main magnetic field of the MRI scanner. Since only bound contrast agent shows significant magnetic field dependence, it is an indicator of the bound probe, which is in turn a marker for the target molecule. This work details the development of the dreMR method, focusing on the specialized hardware necessary to provide a clinical, static-field MRI the ability to modulate its main magnetic field throughout an MRI sequence. All modifications were performed in such a manner that the host MRI system was not degrade

Dual optimization method of radiofrequency and quasistatic field simulations for reduction of eddy currents generated on 7T radiofrequency coil shielding.

PURPOSE: To optimize the design of radiofrequency (RF) shielding of transmit coils at 7T and reduce eddy currents generated on the RF shielding when imaging with rapid gradient waveforms. METHODS: One set of a four-element, 2 × 2 Tic-Tac-Toe head coil structure was selected and constructed to study eddy currents on the RF coil shielding. The generated eddy currents were quantitatively studied in the time and frequency domains. The RF characteristics were studied using the finite difference time domain method. Five different kinds of RF shielding were tested on a 7T MRI scanner with phantoms and in vivo human subjects. RESULTS: The eddy current simulation method was verified by the measurement results. Eddy currents induced by solid/intact and simple-structured slotted RF shielding significantly distorted the gradient fields. Echo-planar images, B1+ maps, and S matrix measurements verified that the proposed slot pattern suppressed the eddy currents while maintaining the RF characteristics of the transmit coil. CONCLUSION: The presented dual-optimization method could be used to design RF shielding and reduce the gradient field-induced eddy currents while maintaining the RF characteristics of the transmit coil

SQUIDs in biomagnetism : A roadmap towards improved healthcare

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 686865.Peer reviewedPublisher PD