Ultra-fast Multiframe X-ray Imaging System for Explosive Events

Measuring the response of explosives to a variety of thermal and mechanical inputs is important to understand and ultimately predict the reaction violence of an explosive in an accident scenario. Technically, there are many challenges to overcome in observing explosives response. For instance, secondary high explosives are heterogeneous and optically opaque and often need to be confined in metal cases. Furthermore, the reaction is typically accompanied by solid and gas products and light emission with extremes in temperature, pressure, and rate. This makes flash X-ray radiography an important probe as it can be used to image through smoke, flame, metal cases, and opaque solids. However, current flash radiography limits observation to a single image per observation axis. Single point flash measurements can provide an observation of state but not velocity. Therefore, in order to image dynamic events using X-rays, multiple flash X-ray sources are used to produce a series of X-ray images of the explosive event. The goal of the proposed research is to demonstrate the feasibility of developing an X-ray cinematography system for explosive events, by overcoming the limitations of current flash X-ray radiography systems. This will include new developments in hardware and software to achieve the desired goal.