X-ray Grating-based Phase Contrast CT for Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation

X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging (XPCI) techniques have been receiving increasing attention in the last decade due to the contrast improvement that they offer for weakly absorbing materials such as polymers or biological soft tissues. However, their use in industrial non-destructive testing and evaluation has been up to now marginal, on one hand due to the technical limitations of the initial experimental prototypes and on the other hand, because the applications that are the most adapted to this new contrast mechanism were mostly unknown. In this paper, we present recent developments made on X-ray Phase Contrast Imaging based on the Talbot-Lau interferometer that allows for high contrast measurements of weakly absorbing objects. The potential for the industrial inspection of fiber reinforced materials (for example impact damage, fiber debonding or porosity) is illustrated with experimental results.