Experimental facility for two- and three-dimensional ultrafast electron beam x-ray computed tomography.

An experimental facility is described, which has been designed to perform ultrafast two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) electron beam computed tomographies. As a novelty, a specially designed transparent target enables tomography with no axial offset for 2D imaging and high axial resolution 3D imaging employing the cone-beam tomography principles. The imaging speed is 10 000 frames per second for planar scanning and more than 1000 frames per second for 3D imaging. The facility serves a broad spectrum of potential applications; primarily, the study of multiphase flows, but also in principle nondestructive testing or small animal imaging. In order to demonstrate the aptitude for these applications, static phantom experiments at a frame rate of 2000 frames per second were performed. Resulting spatial resolution was found to be 1.2 mm and better for a reduced temporal resolution.