Non-destructive inspection of water or high-pressure hydrogen gas in metal pipes by the flash of neutrons and x rays generated by laser

Abstract

The thermal and epithermal neutrons are powerful probes to inspect water or high-pressure hydrogen gas because of their large scattering cross-sections with protons. Laser-driven neutron source, which is able to simultaneously emit different types of radiations such as x rays, can be used for neutron and x-ray radiography in the same laser shot. In this paper, we report the demonstration of non-destructive inspection for H2O contained within a stainless steel pipe using a laser-driven thermal neutron source, where water and stainless containers are detected by neutrons and x rays, respectively. The simulation result indicates that this method can also provide the capability to measure the hydrogen density in high-pressure hydrogen gas in metal containers.