Portascan: a New Instrument for Nde of Wooden Structures

Some years ago, the author had designed and built a portable computed tomography instrument called PortaCat for imaging wooden power poles. Independent trials in 1998 demonstrated that among a range of techniques available, PortaCat images provided the best estimates of parameters such as available bending moments. However, in spite of an urgent requirement of the power industry to adopt non-destructive techniques, PortaCat was not a commercial success. The problem was revisited in 2005, and it was realised that while a density image of the cross section of a pole was informative, it was only a means to an end. The important information was the estimate of available bending moments, and a simpler, and much faster, method was devised to obtain this. The idea was patented using validation from the PortaCat image data, and a new instrument PortaScan has been designed and built.