08 June 2009
Material world exposed by £2.5m X-ray facility
Dinosaur experts will rub shoulders with aircraft designers at a
new x-ray imaging facility at The University of Manchester.
The Henry Moseley X-ray Imaging Facility will provide
researchers from across the world with the ‘x-ray spectacles’ to
see inside materials and structures from the metre to the nanometre
scale in 3D – with unparalleled resolution.
They will also be able to watch structures evolve or processes
occur on timescales ranging from seconds to months.
The Facility represents an investment of £2.5 million by the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the
University and the Northwest Regional Development Agency
(NWDA).
Based in the Materials Science Centre in The School of
Materials, the unique facility is open to academic and industrial
researchers from Manchester and beyond. It forms part of the
University of Manchester Aerospace Research Institute (UMARI).
It provides world-class facilities for a process known as
Computed Tomography – a powerful non-destructive evaluation
technique for producing 2-D and 3-D cross-sectional images of an
object from a series of 2D x-rays.
Objects examined may range from heavy engineering components to
micron-sized biological samples. Biological events, degradation
processes such as corrosion, or crushing of materials can be
monitored in a non-invasive way.
Imaging equipment is supported by a suite of powerful
workstations for the offline reconstruction and visualisation of
data. A sample preparation area and office work space is also
available.
The new facility will be used by researchers working with a diverse
range of samples and objects, including composite, biological,
metallurgical, paper, textiles, sports goods, archaeological,
paleontological and geological samples.
The Facility complements and extends the advanced equipment that
already exists within the University’s Stress and Damage
Characterisation Unit for the non-destructive investigation of
materials across a very wide range of disciplines.
Prof Phil Withers, founder of the new facility said: “From a
series of 2D x-ray images we can construct 3D ‘pictures’. This
facility enables us to study how things evolve over time, either
naturally or under a range of loads, temperatures or other stimuli.
It is bringing together scientists and engineers from many
disciplines to see things behave at a level of detail not
previously possible.”
Dr. George Baxter, NWDA Director of Science and Innovation,
said: “The NWDA is pleased to provide its support for this
important project, which supports the aims of the Northwest Science
Strategy and will help to further enhance the region’s scientific
capability. The Northwest has a reputation as a leader in the field
of science and innovation, and the opening of this pioneering new
facility is another example of the region’s strengths in this
area.”
Notes for editors
About Henry Moseley: In 1913 Henry Moseley worked at the
University of Manchester with Ernest Rutherford, where he found
that each element emits X-rays of a characteristic wavelength
(described by Moseley’s Law). This Law advanced chemistry by
immediately sorting the elements of the periodic table into the
correct order and even pointing to elements not then known about.
Previously, elements had been assigned their positions within the
Periodic Table on the basis of their chemical properties but
Moseley showed that the elements could be arranged with certainty
according to their atomic number.
He would almost certainly have been awarded a Nobel prize but
his life was tragically cut short when he was killed in action at
Gallipoli at the age of 27.
For more information please contact Alex Waddington, Media
Relations Officer, The University of Manchester, Tel 0161 275 8387
/ 07717 881569.
For more information about the Facility please see:
http://www.materials.manchester.ac.uk/research/facilities/moseley/