Recent developments in industrial applications of elastic scatter X-ray inspection

This article describes some recent advances in elastic X-ray scatter as a means of non-invasive industrial inspection. Elastic scatter leads directly to X-ray diffraction and is dependent upon the molecular structure of the scattering medium, This makes the technique particularly sensitive to discrimination between low-Z materials and has been exploited in such areas as the detection of "soft", or low-Z, contaminants in foodstuff, for the discrimination of oil and water and in the detection of mineral deposits. These applications are discussed together with an outline of X-ray scattering theory and an overview of the various means of exploiting elastic X-ray scatter for materials inspection and imaging. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.