Patent Application
20140342631
The present invention relates to X-ray tubes and in particular to multi-focus X-rays tubes for imaging applications.
Multi-focus X-ray tubes generally comprise a single anode in linear or arcuate geometry which can be irradiated along its length by two or more switched electron sources. In a typically configuration, hundreds of electron sources or guns might be used to irradiate a single anode with a length of over 1 m. Often the electron guns will be actuated individually and sequentially in order to create a rapidly moving X-ray beam. Alternatively, the electron sources can be actuated in groups to provide X-rays beams with varying spatial frequency composition.
Known multi-focus X-ray sources tend to use combination metal and ceramic housings fabricated using standard vacuum seals such as con-flat assemblies or metal gasket seals. Such assemblies are extremely expensive to put together since they require precision machining to meet stringent vacuum requirements.
The present invention therefore provides a method of producing an X-ray tube comprising forming a first housing section from sheet metal; forming a second housing section from sheet metal, mounting an electron source in one of the housing sections; mounting an anode in one of the housing sections; and joining the housing sections together to form a housing defining a chamber with the electron source and the anode therein.
The housing sections may be formed by pressing. This makes the method quick and efficient. Various features of the housing, such as welding formations or mounting apertures for feed-throughs, may be formed by stamping. This can be done simultaneously and on the same press tool as the formation of the main housing sections, or may be done as a separate step.
The present invention further provides an X-ray tube comprising housing, an anode supported in the housing, and an X-ray source arranged to generate beams of electrons directed at a plurality of positions on the anode, wherein the housing comprises two sections formed from sheet metal.
The present invention further provides a method of producing an anode for an X-ray tube, the method comprising providing a tubular member and forming the tubular member so as to form a target surface thereon.
The present invention further provides an X-ray tube comprising an anode; an electron source arranged to generate a beam of electrons, wherein the anode comprises a tubular member having a target surface thereon at which the beam of electrons can be directed; and a coolant supply arranged to deliver coolant to flow through the tubular member to cool the anode.
The present invention further provides an X-ray tube comprising a housing; an anode within the housing, the anode including a cooling duct through which coolant can be passed to cool the anode; a coolant circuit through which coolant can be supplied to and returned from the anode; and a feed-through extending through the housing and comprising an electrical connection for connecting an electrical supply to the anode and a coolant passage arranged to form part of the coolant circuit.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
a is a cross section through the anode of
Referring to
The housing 12 is formed in two sections: an anode section 20 and a cathode section 22. The anode section 20 is approximately semi-circular or C-shaped in section with weld rims 24a, 24b formed at its radially inner and outer edges. The anode 16 is supported on the anode section 20 by means of an anode feed-through 30 which is formed separately from the housing 10 and welded onto it, as will be described in more detail below, and a number of mountings which are similar to the feed-through 30 but do not include the electrical connections of the feed-through, being for physical support only. An exit window 26 is formed in the radially inner side of the anode section 20, so as to allow beams of X-rays, generated at each of a large number of positions along the anode 16 by the electron guns 18, to exit the housing in the radially inward direction.
The cathode section 22 of the housing 12 is of a slightly more square section than the anode section 20, having radially inner and outer side walls 32, 34 and a flat back wall 36 on which the electron sources 18 are mounded. Each electron source 18 extends round an arc of the scanner, and is arranged to generate beams of electrons from each of a number of positions along its length in a controlled sequence, by the electrical switching of the voltage applied to respective control elements to control the extraction or suppression of electrons from respective positions along a cathode.
In this embodiment, both housing sections 20, 22 are formed from pressed metal sheets typically using a low carbon stainless steel such as 316L. The pressed parts are sculptured to provide additional strength allowing the material thickness to be reduced to 2 mm or below. The sculpturing design uses large radii (typically greater than 5 mm) to reduce internal electric field strengths within the tube.
The resulting housing parts 20, 22 are extremely rigid and light when compared to the machined equivalents. Further, the parts, being fully radiused, provide excellent support of the electrostatic fields within the tube which can allow the volume of the enclosed vacuum chamber 14 to be reduced substantially when compared to a machined tube equivalent. Further, the surface area of the exposed metal surfaces tends to be low compared to a machined equivalent so reducing the gas inventory which can outgas into the tube during operation. This prolongs tube lifetime and reduces cost of the associated ion pumping system.
In a typical application such as security screening or medical diagnostics, the overall weight of the X-ray system is often a critical factor and the intrinsically light weight of this tube design is important in meeting this key design objective.
As an alternative to stamping, a spinning process may be used to form the housing parts although in this case the wall thickness, and hence weight of the finished tube, will be greater than when the parts are stamped.
It is necessary to add electrically insulated signal feed-throughs 40 through the cathode part 22 in order to provide switching potentials for the control elements in the electron guns 18. It is advantageous from a manufacturing yield perspective to pre-fabricate the feed-through parts and to then weld these into pre-cut holes 42 in the formed cathode section 22. Referring to
Referring to
Referring back to
As an alternative individually insulated feed-throughs may be brazed or glazed into a metal disk which can then be welded into the tube housing assembly.
In a first approach to the manufacture of the tube, the same press tool that is used to form the cathode section 22 can be provided with cutting shapes that stamp out the holes 42 for the feed-through components 40. This press tool can also be provided with indenting features that stamp out a weld preparation in the cathode section, arranged to be welded to the ring 48 of the feed-through assembly 40, simultaneously with cutting and stamping. This is a very cost effective and accurate process which requires minimal operator involvement.
In a second approach, the stamped cathode section 22 can be laser-cut to introduce the holes 42 into which the cathode feed-throughs will be welded. A lower power laser beam can then be used to cut out channels around the feed-through holes 42 in order to form a weld preparation. This is a more expensive operation but provides greater flexibility to the operator.
Of course, it is also possible to use standard machine tools to cut out the cathode feed-through apertures 42 and to introduce the necessary weld preparations. This tends to be a more expensive approach since it requires greater setup time and more extensive clamping of the cathode section 22 during machining with consequently greater operator time requirement.
Referring back to
To assist in supporting the required HV, the ceramic tube 80 is glazed with a conductive film leaving around 10 GOhm resistance between the two ends of the part. This forces a current of around 1 uA to pass down the ceramic during high voltage operation so controlling the potential gradient across the ceramic while also providing a current path to ground for any electrons that might scatter from the anode inside the tube and reach the surface of the ceramic. This provides stability against high voltage flashover and minimizes the overall length of the standoff ceramic. Once the conductive glaze has been applied, a thin Pt metal ring is painted around the top and bottom of the feed-through and fired in air in order to provide a contact for connection of the resistive films to HV and ground.
A further conductive ceramic resistor cap 90 with good dielectric strength but reasonably high electrical conductivity (10 kOhm-100 kOhm resistance typical) is glazed into the ceramic end cap 84. Advantageously, a field-shaping electrode 89 is provided which covers the vacuum-side of the ceramic end cap 84 and the join between the end cap 84 and the ceramic tube 80 and is electrically connected to the ceramic resistor cap 90. The electrode 89 has an annular part and a tubular part extending from the radially-outer edge of the annular part. The annular part connects to the ceramic resistor cap 90 at a point on its vacuum-side face midway between the centre and the radially outer edge, and the tubular part extends alongside, but spaced from, a part of the ceramic tube 80 so as to surround the part of the ceramic tube 8. The distal end of the tubular part carries a lip 89a which curves inwardly towards, but not into contact with, the ceramic tube 80. No part of the electrode 89 is in contact with either the ceramic end cap 84 or the ceramic tube 80, and it will be appreciated from
The ceramic resistor cap 90 is metalized (with Pt) on its two outer surfaces 92, 94 to provide a current surge limiting resistor that takes effect in the event of a high voltage flashover occurring inside the tube itself. In this case, the full tube voltage appears over this resistor 90 which limits current flow and so controls the flashover. The value of the resistor 90 is chosen to be as large as possible to minimize current during a flashover, but as small as possible to minimize thermal power dissipation and voltage drop during normal tube operation. A sprung contact (not shown) connects the air side of this ceramic resistor 90 to the high voltage terminal 96 of the anode HV receptacle 98.
The HV receptacle 98 is of conventional HV design, and comprises a cylindrical body 100 supporting an HV plug 102, with a conducting metal bar 103 connecting the plug 102 to the high voltage terminal 96. However, the body 100 has a coolant channel 104 formed through it in the form of a bore extending from its outer end 106 to its inner end 109 to pass coolant back from the anode 16. The HV receptacle extends through the ceramic tube 80 but is of smaller diameter so that a space 108 is formed around the receptacle 98 inside the ceramic tube 80. This space 108 also extends between the inner end 109 of the receptacle 98 and the end cap 84 and forms a coolant volume. The inner end of the coolant channel 104 connects via a sprung washer 110 to the ceramic end cap 84. Two pipe stubs 112, 114 extend through holes in the end cap 84, each having one end connected to the hollow anode 16. Holes are cut through the anode 16 before the pipe stubs 112, 114 are connected to it, and the stub pipes are connected over the holes which form ports to provide fluid connection to the coolant passage within the anode 16. One of these pipe stubs 112 has its outer end covered by the sprung washer 110 to form a return passage from the anode 16 to the coolant channel 104, and the other 114 connects the anode 16 to the space 108 between the HV receptacle 98 and the ceramic tube 80.
At the outer end of the HV receptacle 98, the space 108 is closed by an end plate 116. The end plate 116 has a coolant inlet channel 118 formed in it which connects to the space 108 and a coolant outlet channel 120 which connects with the channel 104 through the HV receptacle 98. The HV end plate 116 of the HV receptacle is bolted at the ground referenced end to a support ring 124 in which the Nilo-K ring 86 is supported, and which therefore forms part of the anode HV metal ceramic feed-through, using an O-ring seal 122 to contain the coolant. This forms a coolant circuit through which coolant can be fed to and from the hollow anode 16. Coolant fed to the inlet channel 118 is passed into the space 108 between the anode HV metal ceramic feed-through and the anode receptacle 98 in order to cool the feed-through itself and to provide suitable HV passivation of the feed-through assembly. It also passes into the lower part of the coolant volume where it flows over the ceramic resistor 90 to cool it. From there it flows into the anode 16 through the stub pipe 114. Coolant returned from the anode 16 is forced to pass through the stub pipe 112, the spring washer 10 which separates the return path from the inlet coolant volume 108, and then through the coolant channel 104 and back out through the outlet channel 120 to the external cooling system.
In a modification to the design of
Referring to
Alternatively, the raised rim section 128 can be prepared prior to welding by using a laser cutter to cut off the top of the stamped rim section. This is a more expensive operation requiring additional operator involvement.
Once the anode feed-through has been welded to the raised anode rim section 128, it is advantageous to clean the interior of the anode tube section 20 to remove weld debris that might affect high voltage stability.
If thick metal sheet has been used to form the anode and cathode sections 20, 22, it is advantageous to form the thin window section 26 for the X-ray beam to emit through in that metal sheet.
This is possible if the metal sheet is of stainless steel, as it is reasonable to use a stainless steel exit window in order to absorb low energy X-ray photons which otherwise will typically cause excess skin dose in medical applications and will cause beam hardening in security and CT applications.
To create the exit window 26, a suitable low cost technique is to use a rolling tool to shift metal out of the exit window area. Alternatively, a cutting or grinding machine tool can be used to thin the window area 26.
Various methods may be used to form the X-ray target on the hollow tubular anode 16. Referring to
Ideally, a hydro-forming process is used to develop the anode shape. This has the advantage of leaving the anode very rigid. Alternatively, a stamping process can be used to form the anode 16 to the required shape.
The anode 16 is ideally fabricated from a ductile metal such as copper or stainless steel. Copper has the advantage of excellent thermal conductivity but relatively poor mechanical strength and a tendency to creep under high temperature. Stainless steel is a very good vacuum material and forms easily but suffers from relatively poor thermal conductivity. Both copper and stainless steel have similar coefficients of thermal expansion and so minimise mechanical stress between the anode and tube housing 12 during high temperature bakeout.
To enhance X-ray yield, it is advantageous to coat the target area of the formed anode with a high-Z refractive material such as tungsten. A low cost process to deposit tungsten onto the anode 16 is thermal spray coating. This is a rapid process which can be used to deposit even thick layers of tungsten or tungsten carbide.
As an alternative, the anode can be formed from a high-Z and intrinsically refractive material such as molybdenum. This can allow one to dispense with the tungsten coating process while still achieving high X-ray yield, albeit at a slightly lower mean X-ray energy than when using tungsten.
Once the interior sections of the tube have been assembled (the electron gun assemblies 18 and the anode assembly 16), the tube may be sealed by welding the inner and outer flanges together that are produced when the anode and cathode sections are brought together. By providing a weld lip 24a, 24b as shown in
Due to the compact nature of the tube of this embodiment, it is possible to minimise weight of the complete system by wrapping the shielding material directly around the X-ray tube itself. For example, in this embodiment, cast lead parts are formed, one shaped to snugly fit around the cathode section 22 and one shaped to fit around the anode section 24. A typical lead thickness for use with X-ray tube voltages around 160 kV will be 12 mm or even less depending on anticipated tube operating current.
As a further aspect of this invention, it is recognised that multiple tube housing sections of different sizes can be stamped concentrically out of a single sheet of metal simultaneously. For example, anode or cathode sections destined for circular tubes suitable for motionless CT applications can be formed simultaneously for 30 cm, 60 cm, 90 cm and 120 cm inspection apertures from a single sheet of metal with around 2 m square profile.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0816823.9 | Sep 2008 | GB | national |
The present application is a national stage application of PCT/GB2009/051178, filed on Sep. 13, 2008. The present application further relies on Great Britain Patent Application Number 0816823.9, filed on Sep. 11, 2009, for priority. Both priority applications are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13063467 | May 2011 | US |
| Child | 14312525 | US |
