• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.93-99
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• 2016

Background: Industrial X-ray CT system is normally applied to non-destructive testing (NDT) for industrial product made from metal. Furthermore there are some special CT systems, which have an ability to inspect nuclear fuel assemblies or rocket motors, using high power and high energy (more than 6 MeV) pulsed X-ray source. In these case, pulsed X-ray are produced by the electron linear accelerator, and a huge number of photons with a wide energy spectrum are produced within a very short period. Consequently, it is difficult to measure the X-ray energy spectrum for such accelerator-based X-ray sources using simple spectrometry. Due to this difficulty, unexpected images and artifacts which lead to incorrect density information and dimensions of specimens cannot be avoided in CT images. For getting highly precise CT images, it is important to know the precise energy spectrum of emitted X-rays. Materials and Methods: In order to realize it we investigated a new approach utilizing the Bayesian estimation method combined with an attenuation curve measurement using step shaped attenuation material. This method was validated by precise measurement of energy spectrum from a 1 MeV electron accelerator. In this study, to extend the applicable X-ray energy range we tried to measure energy spectra of X-ray sources from 6 and 9 MeV linear accelerators by using the recently developed method. Results and Discussion: In this study, an attenuation curves are measured by using a step-shaped attenuation materials of aluminum and steel individually, and the each X-ray spectrum is reconstructed from the measured attenuation curve by the spectrum type Bayesian estimation method. Conclusion: The obtained result shows good agreement with simulated spectra, and the presently developed technique is adaptable for high energy X-ray source more than 6 MeV.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.7
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• pp.1495-1502
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• 2020

A new method of X-ray source spectrum estimation based on compressed sensing is proposed in this paper. The algorithm K-SVD is applied for sparse representation. Nonnegative constraints are added by modifying the L₁ reconstruction algorithm proposed by Rosset and Zhu. The estimation method is demonstrated on simulated spectra typical of mammography and CT. X-ray spectra are simulated with the Monte Carlo code Geant4. The proposed method is successfully applied to highly ill conditioned and under determined estimation problems with a good performance of suppressing noises. Results with acceptable accuracies (MSE < 5%) can be obtained with 10% Gaussian white noises added to the simulated experimental data. The biggest difference between the proposed method and the existing methods is that multiple prior knowledge of X-ray spectra can be included in one dictionary, which is meaningful for obtaining the true X-ray spectrum from the measurements.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.403-408
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• 2013

This study made a tentative estimation of the shielding rate of barium compound by thickness through monte carlo simulation to apply medical radiation shielding products that can replace existing lead. Barium sulfate($BaSO_4$) was used for the shielding material, and thickness of the shielding material specimen was simulated from 0.1 mm to 5 mm by applying $15{\times}15cm^2$ of specimen area, $4.5g/cm^3$ of density of barium sulfate, and $11.34g/cm^3$ density of lead. Entered source was simulated with 10kVp Step in consecutive X-ray energy spectrum(40 kVp ~ 120 kVp). Absorption probability in 40 kVp ~ 60 kVp showed same shielding rate with lead in 3 mm ~ 5 mm of thickness, but it was identified that under 2 mm, the shielding rate was a bit lower than the existing lead shielding material. Also, the shielding rate in 70 kVp ~ 120 kVp energy band showed similar performance as the existing lead shielding material, but it was tentatively estimated as fairly low shielding rate below 0.5 mm. This study estimated the shielding rate of barium compound as the thickness function of x-ray energy band for medical radiation through monte carlo simulation, and made comparative analysis with existing lead. Also, this study intended to verify application validity of the x-ray shielding material for medical radiation of pure barium sulfate. As a result, it was estimated that the shielding effect was 95% higher than the existing lead 1.5 mm in at least 2 mm thickness of barium compound in medical radiation energy band 70 kVp ~ 120 kVp, and this result is considered valid to be provided as a base data in weight lightening production of radiation shielding product for medical radiation.