Jacob Pruess

US Patent:

20040218716, Nov 4, 2004

Filed:

Feb 11, 2004

Appl. No.:

10/777947

Inventors:

Barry Freifeld - Oakland CA, US
Timothy Kneafsey - Albany CA, US
Jacob Pruess - Berkeley CA, US
Liviu Tomutsa - Hercules CA, US
Paul Reiter - Berkeley CA, US
Ted de Castro - Castro Valley CA, US

Assignee:

The Regents of the University of California - Oakland CA

International Classification:

G01N023/04

US Classification:

378/062000

Abstract:

An operator shielded X-ray imaging system has sufficiently low mass (less than 300 kg) and is compact enough to enable portability by reducing operator shielding requirements to a minimum shielded volume. The resultant shielded volume may require a relatively small mass of shielding in addition to the already integrally shielded X-ray source, intensifier, and detector. The system is suitable for portable imaging of well cores at remotely located well drilling sites. The system accommodates either small samples, or small cross-sectioned objects of unlimited length. By rotating samples relative to the imaging device, the information required for computer aided tomographic reconstruction may be obtained. By further translating the samples relative to the imaging system, fully three dimensional (3D) tomographic reconstructions may be obtained of samples having arbitrary length.