Proton NMR Imaging of Green State Ceramics

High performance ceramic materials in advanced technology applications are becoming of increasing importance. As a result, the necessity of finding new quantitative non-destructive evaluation (QNDE) methods for ceramics is becoming increasingly apparent. This paper explores the applicability of proton NMR imaging to the QNDE of ceramic materials. While proton NMR imaging is clearly well developed in the area of medical applications (1), only a few experiments have been performed to determine the applicability of this technique to the analysis of ceramic bodies (2). Compared to the NMR imaging of soft tissues for medical applications, the magnetic interactions of protons in solids or semi-solids make high resolution image generation more difficult. These interactions both broaden the proton NMR lines and shorten the spin-spin relaxation times. As a result, larger encoding magnetic field gradients and faster gradient switching are required of a NMR imaging system to produce high resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio images of solids

Proton NMR Imaging of Green State Ceramics

High performance ceramic materials in advanced technology applications are becoming of increasing importance. As a result, the necessity of finding new quantitative non-destructive evaluation (QNDE) methods for ceramics is becoming increasingly apparent. This paper explores the applicability of proton NMR imaging to the QNDE of ceramic materials. While proton NMR imaging is clearly well developed in the area of medical applications (1), only a few experiments have been performed to determine the applicability of this technique to the analysis of ceramic bodies (2). Compared to the NMR imaging of soft tissues for medical applications, the magnetic interactions of protons in solids or semi-solids make high resolution image generation more difficult. These interactions both broaden the proton NMR lines and shorten the spin-spin relaxation times. As a result, larger encoding magnetic field gradients and faster gradient switching are required of a NMR imaging system to produce high resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio images of solids.</p

Automated particle analysis of aerosols formed during biomass combustion by SEM/EDXS

Computer controlled SEMlEDXS enables the measurement of both the geometrical parameters and the chemical composition of thousands of individual particles. Thus it is an ideal tool to study the process of aerosol fonnation, e.g. in biomass combustion units, and how it can be influenced by the process parameters. The accuracy of both the measured geometrical parameters and the quantitative results of the x-ray analysis decreases with decreasing particle size. Nevertheless, an automated analysis of particles down to a size of 50 - 100 nm is possible