Abstract
The iridium disc, generally used in industrial radiography, is examined to find the fracture morphology and fine particles remaining on the shear blank surface. Randomly selected 1,200 discs were observed under a scanning electron microscope tilted more than $45^{\circ}$. Fracture surfaces are classified into three groups: (1) surface fall-out, (2) fracture on the edge and (3) multi-step brittle fracture, which shows the mutual relationship between the fracture morphology and remaining particles. Fracture particles were removed by cleaning the discs in a ultrasonic bath with acetone and collected at the bottom. Removed number of the particles were counted for each different group of fracture surfaces. Followings are conclusions: (1) About 80.5% of discs (966/1,200), have sound plastic shear surfaces with particles remained. (2) About 2% discs accompany surface fall-out's having large particles tens of ${\mu}m$, which is stable not to be pulled out even after the considerably long time of ultrasonic cleaning. (3) About 5% discs contain the fractures on the edge and the particles are removed thoroughly within 30 minutes. (4) 234 discs out of 1,200 discs have multi-step fracture surfaces whose particles never removed in a short period of time but come out very slowly. Such a disc having multiple-step fracture is attributed to the promate cause to the 'leaker'. It is noted here that the discs having mutiple-step fractures should be treated separately with special care, and it is need to study how to treat them.