SENSITIVITY STUDY OF X-RAY COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY FOR EVALUATING THE MASS AND STRIKING VELOCITY OF EMBEDDED FRAGMENTS IN PLYWOOD RECOVERY MEDIA

Abstract

X-ray computed tomography coupled to the automated data analysis tool FragFinder was used to study six targets impacted by 11 different projectiles. Extracted projectile DOP, volumes, and densities provided a sufficient database for predicting impact velocity. The obtained precision is estimated to be in the range of ± 12 % with similar contributions of projectile density (± 2.2 %) and volume (± 2.8 %). The main observed challenges are the necessary high image resolution for small projectiles combined with the generally large size of recovery media (targets) and the presence of certain metals such as Zr, Mo and Pb in projectiles. Their high atomic number and density are causing CT image artefacts and measurement saturation, even at low concentration levels.