Straddle inspection system
First Claim
1. An apparatus for radiographic inspection of vehicles and large containers comprising,a movable, inverted U-shaped frame having first and second parallel vertical sides spaced apart by a distance greater than a container to be inspected,means for moving the frame relative to a container to be inspected,a penetrating radiation source disposed on a first side of the frame having a beam directed toward the second side,a detector disposed to record radiation traversing the space between the sides, producing a radiographic signal indicative of material in the space, andmeans for summing radiographic signals along a dimension of the container thereby forming a radiographic image of the contents of the container.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A radiographic inspection apparatus for large containers, vehicles and structures having a movable frame which can straddle the container or object being inspected. The straddling frame has opposed parallel sides which carry a source of penetrating radiation and a detector array. The source or sources and detectors are moved along the length of a container while radiographic image data is being sequentially recorded. By summing or collecting the sequence of data over the length of a container as the straddling frame moves along, a full two-dimensional radiographic image of the container may be obtained. Radiographic images may be enhanced either by providing uniform motion for the straddling frame or by measuring non-uniform motion and compensating corresponding regions of the radiographic image.
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Citations
48 Claims
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1. An apparatus for radiographic inspection of vehicles and large containers comprising,
a movable, inverted U-shaped frame having first and second parallel vertical sides spaced apart by a distance greater than a container to be inspected, means for moving the frame relative to a container to be inspected, a penetrating radiation source disposed on a first side of the frame having a beam directed toward the second side, a detector disposed to record radiation traversing the space between the sides, producing a radiographic signal indicative of material in the space, and means for summing radiographic signals along a dimension of the container thereby forming a radiographic image of the contents of the container.
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30. An apparatus for the radiographic inspection of large containers comprising,
a straddle carrier vehicle or crane having two sets of wheels supported by a frame, the wheels mutually spaced apart on opposite sides of the frame by a distance exceeding the width of a container to be inspected such that one set of wheels is on each side of the container in a straddle relation therewith, the vehicle having propulsion means for moving relative to the container, an X-ray source disposed on a first side of said straddle carrier vehicle having a beam directed toward the second side, an X-ray detector array disposed to intercept the X-ray beam upon traversing the space between mutually spaced apart sets of wheels and to produce a signal representing the X-ray image through the container, and means for displaying or recording the image signal.
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40. A method of radiographic inspection of large opaque objects, such as cargo containers, rail cars, trucks and the like comprising,
establishing a stationary position for a large opaque object having a length, height and width, straddling the width of the large object with a frame having opposed sides, directing a beam of penetrating radiation through the object from one side of the frame to the opposite side, detecting the beam passing through the object and producing a visible radiographic signal for a single location corresponding to the detected beam, moving the frame and beam along the length of the object, summing the radiographic signals for a plurality of frame and beam positions along the length of the object thereby forming a two-dimensional radiographic image of the object.
Specification