Using ytterbium-169 for safe and economical industrial radiography

Safety has become an issue of paramount importance for industrial radiography. Many NDE facilities and suppliers are finding the cost of performing radiography Prohibitive due to heightened safety concerns for radiation area protection. The most common sources used in radiography, Iridium-192 and Cobalt-60, result in high radiation fields over a large area. Even when collimators are used large radiation fields can result from multicurie source radiography. Radiographic operations are being forced to find alternative test methods and techniques to the use of the old stand-by sources. These alternate methods are not always as comprehensive a test as full volumetric examination with radiography. Since Iridium and Cobalt are in such wide spread use, they are sometimes called upon to perform test of materials which are not in their optimum sensitivity range