You might be surprised to know cast metal products can be found in 90 percent of manufactured goods and equipment throughout the world. From critical components for aircraft and automobiles to home appliances and surgical equipment, cast metal products play an important role in today’s economy especially in the United States. The U.S. is the world’s largest supplier, shipping $18 billion worth of products annually (according to the Office of Industrial Technologies report, Metal Casting – Industry of the Future).

Thanks to most recent developments, computed tomography (CT) is now an affordable and efficient
technology for non-destructive testing of workpieces made of a vast variety of materials. While digital radiography provides two-dimensional fluoroscopic images, computed tomography typically rotates the object between the X-ray tube and the flat-panel detector 360° and captures several hundred to well over a thousand X-ray images from various angles.

The growth of the orthopedics market poses a huge opportunity for Industrial Computed Tomography (CT) as a quality inspection tool for this highly regulated industry, where quality and safety are of the utmost importance. This article published in the recent Medial Design Briefs magazine explores how CT can be a valuable tool for design and quality engineers to help them ensure their critical products meet and exceed regulatory standards, and also details the benefits of CT for additive manufacturing.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the most revolutionary processes to come along in many years, making a dramatic impact on the industrial market. Also known as 3D printing, AM is a manufacturing technique that builds objects layer by layer using materials such as polymers, metals, and composites. This fast-evolving technology is changing the way engineers think about product design by offering enormous flexibility in what is geometrically possible. However, the more complex the design, the more challenging (and necessary) it can be to inspect in the quality control process.

Starting out mainly as a prototyping technology Additive Manufacturing (AM) gained tremendous momentum for  use in industrial applications over the last 5 years. For highly demanding functional parts, laser beam powder bed fusion (LB-PBF) became the most dominant AM technology.

At the end of July, YXLON International, a company of the Swiss tech holding COMET Group, lent one of their state-of-the-art computed tomography systems to the California Academy of Sciences.  The FF20 CT system will be in use at the institute until January 31st, 2018.

In an exclusive webinar, Peter Kramm, YXLON Senior Product Manager, discusses the revolutionary computed tomography technology found in the YXLON FF20 CT and FF35 CT systems, with a detailed segment on helical scans.

Abigail Curtis, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, demonstrates how computed tomography reveals unexpected scientific insights into bat physiology. X-ray with computed tomography is used to create digital reconstructions of modern and fossilized bat samples.

Computed tomography (CT) goes light years beyond regular 2-D X-ray technology to deliver accurate three-dimensional images of scanned objects, including their voids and areas of differing density. Jason Robbins, YXLON Senior Product Manager, explains the science of CT in this (fun and nerdy!) educational video.