Computed Tomography (CT) system for automatic analysis of ice cores

An automated analysis of ice cores from various depths in Antarctic glaciers allows conclusions about climatic changes during the past millennia. According to the respecting depth from which the ice core had been obtained, varying porosities of the ice are to be expected. A computed tomography (CT) system enables us to analyse ice cores, to determine the porosity of the ice and to correlate those results to the climate of the respective range of time. The ice cores to be scanned have a length of 1 m and a diameter of 10 cm. Since high image quality is required to get precise results, a vast amount of measurement data will arise. Geometric challenges raise the requirements on X-Ray components and furthermore measurements will be made in an environment of -15 °C. The setup of the CT-system, the implemented methods for data acquisition and analysis and results will be presented.