Characterisation of metallic powder impregnated pastes using polychromatic X-radiography

This article reports on the employment of X-radiography using the bremsstrahlung of a commercial broad-spectrum X-ray source to quantify the differences and relationships between complex materials of unknown composition. The materials examined were metallic powders embedded in a carrier paste. The resulting pseudo-signatures are transmission spectra over a range from 15 to 75 kV taken at 1 kV intervals, which were extracted from stacks of registered, field-flattened images. It is shown that it is possible to quantify differences between transmission spectra in order to differentiate between metallic powders used to impregnate the carrier paste.