Dynamics inside massive objects such as damage (e.g. fracture) or transformations (e.g. laser welding) are of high interest to increase life time of products or to optimize industrial processes. High-speed radioscopy using large scale facilities can nowadays be used to study dynamics inside opaque objects with unprecedented temporal resolution.
Why is it important?
X-ray imaging is a well-established tool for non-destructive evaluation frequently applied to static objects. Dynamics inside opaque samples are commonly not accessible due to the limited amount of photons emitted by classical X-ray sources. By using large scale facilities, i.e. synchrotron light sources, sufficient photons are available to realize exposure times in the nanosecond regime for hard X-rays while maintaining high spatial resolution. This allows to depict dynamics such as fracture, cavity collapse or melting inside opaque and dense samples such as metals or engineered devices.