
Modern production processes including hot isostatic pressing (HIP), additive manufacturing and metal injection molding and manufacturing techniques involving metal powders.
Micro-CT is used to determine the morphometry of particles in powder metallurgy, for demanding production processes. As a non-destructive technique, it’s also extremely useful for looking inside objects in failure analysis and final parts inspection.
Characterise samples from µm to cm scale in minutes
Applications
Micro-CT (also known as XRM or X-Ray Microscopy) is widely used in areas including:
CAD Comparison
Compare manufactured parts with CAD models.
- Measure deviations in 3D, on both internal and external surfaces
- Set pass/fail tolerances at pre-defined inspection points
Parts Inspection
- Examine failed products
- Analyse cracks and voids
- Check contact areas at interfaces
- Investigate defects
- Examine reactions to stress and temperature with in-situ stages
Morphometry
Quantitative determination of :
- Porosity & inclusions
- Volume fractions
- Orientation
- Dimensions
- Surface
- Angles
Metal Powders
Quantitative analysis of metal powders – measure parameters including:
- Sphere size distribution
- Sphericity
- Packing
- Porosity
- Surface to volume ratio
- Surface roughness
- Convexity
- Form factor
Additive manufactured metal scanned with the Bruker SkyScan 2214

3072 x 3072 x 1217 pixels; 34 µm isotropic resolution.

Cooling and Heating Stages
Study how parts and materials react at elevated temperatures up to 85°C and down to 30-40°C below ambient.
Material Testing Stages
Combine micro-CT imaging with in-situ tensile and compression testing. Loading curves are displayed on screen in real time


High-throughput Micro-CT with a Sample Changer
Automated scanning to save time. Ideal for checking large numbers of samples in production and quality control.

Scientific Papers
- Evaluation of credibility and limitations of the non rigid registration of micro-CT images as a tool for local strain analysis – Read the paper…
Instruments
Blue Scientific is the official distributor of Bruker SkyScan in the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland. We’re available to advise on which X-Ray Microscopy system would best suit your research – just get in touch.

Bruker SkyScan 1275
Fast, automated XRM scanner. Self-optimising features for high quality images every time.

Bruker SkyScan 1272
Sub-micron resolution from a benchtop system. World’s first scanner with >200Mp in each cross-section.
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