Compact flash X-ray units

Abstract

Flash X-ray units are used to diagnose pulsed power driven experiments on the Pegasus machine at Los Alamos. Several unique designs of Marx powered flash X-ray units have been developed to meet the requirements of the Pegasus experiments. All of these units are compact, battery powered, fiber optically controlled, and EMP shielded. Some of these units are operated with a windowless X-ray tube in the Pegasus machine vacuum tank thereby making the full bremsstrahlung spectrum available for both hard and soft X-ray images. Other units obtain multiple X-ray flashes that are almost collinear by employing an X-ray tube configuration which allows closely spaced X-ray emitting anodes. These units all emit a 10 ns FWHM X-ray pulse. Their Marx banks store from 12 to 100 Joules of electrical energy. The X-ray output ranges from 20 to 100 mR at 3 m with endpoint energies from 100 to 500 keV.