Abstract

1
X-ray Microtomography (XMT) A Tool for
Microstructural Assessment of Wood Composite
Materials
Lech Muszynski Stephen M. Shaler Eric
Landis QIngzheng Cheng Svetlana Vasic
Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center
Abstract
The overview of application of high resolution
X-Ray microtomography (XMT) for assessment of
wood composite materials on the structural level
is presented here. X-ray microtomography (XMT)
is being used in AEWC to create three-dimensional
images of internal microstructure of wood
composite materials at different scales of
observation. The spatial resolution of the unit
used is down to 3 µm. Numerical tools were
developed to extract quantitative information of
the nature and distribution of the different
phases of the composites. Filtering and
segmentation algorithms were applied to isolate
different phases in the 3D images.
Oak vessels
top
top
Oak
front
right side
A set of slice images may be visualized as a
volume or sections created by an arbitrary plane
Physical principle
back
side
CONCLUSIONS
Skyscan 1072 Desktop System
From 1600 shadow images registered by a high
resolution (1024 x 1024) camera 3D volumes of the
scanned samples are reconstructed

• XMT is a high resolution nondestructive 3D
  scanning technique, which enables insight and
  measurements of internal structure of materials
  at µm scales.
• XMT has been used at the AEWC for scanning of
  various materials ranging from solid wood, wood
  and wood/plastic composites, to fiber reinforced
  plastics (FRP)
• Digital tools to unambiguously identify phases of
  different characteristics (like particles,
  polymers, and voids) are in development

• 80 kV x-ray source
• 2-5 µm spatial resolution
• Cone or fan beam reconstruction

visual camera
specimen
stage
Acknowledgements Office of Naval Research (ONR),
Washington State University (Dr. Mike Wolcott)