![]() ![]() – Electric vehicle manufacturers, led by Tesla, are transitioning away from their reliance on cobalt and generally establishing stricter standards on labor in their supply chain.Īs electric vehicles (EVs) gain popularity, the public debate about their pros and cons increases. – While electric car batteries do use cobalt, the largest use of cobalt comes from the portable consumer electronics industry. – The use of cobalt in electric vehicle batteries has been raised as a concern, given the worker exploitation in mining locations such as the Congo. UPDATE: Looking for a more in-depth explainer on electric vehicles and batteries? Check out our “What’s up with electric vehicles and batteries?” article. There is a series of safety procedures, which include several radiation surveys, that must be accomplished when making an exposure with a gamma source. See the radiation safety material for more information.Electric car manufacturers are transitioning away from cobalt, a key component in lithium-ion batteries. To make the exposure, the radiographer quickly cranks the source out of the exposure device and into position in the collimator at the end of the guide tube. At the end of the exposure time, the source is cranked back into the exposure device. The crank-out cable is stretched as far as possible to put as much distance as possible between the exposure device and the radiographer. The end of the guide tube is secured in the location where the radiation source needs to be to produce the radiograph. The guide tube often has a collimator at the end to shield the radiation except in the direction necessary to make the exposure. To make a radiographic exposure, a crank-out mechanism and a guide tube are attached to opposite ends of the exposure device. When the source is not being used to make an exposure, it is locked inside the exposure device. Cobalt cameras are often fixed to a trailer and transported to and from inspection sites. The exposure device for iridium-192 and cobalt-60 sources will contain 45 pounds and 500 pounds of shielding materials, respectively. The source capsule and the pigtail is housed in a shielding device referred to as a exposure device or camera. Depleted uranium is often used as a shielding material for sources. The capsule is attached to short flexible cable called a pigtail. Depending on the level of activity desired, a pellet or pellets are loaded into a stainless steel capsule and sealed by welding. Physical size of isotope materials varies between manufacturers, but generally an isotope material is a pellet that measures 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm. Of course, the disadvantage of a radioactive source is that it can never be turned off and safely managing the source is a constant responsibility. This and the fact that sources are very portable are the main reasons that gamma sources are widely used for field radiography. These high energies make it possible to penetrate thick materials with a relatively short exposure time. In comparison to an X-ray generator, cobalt-60 produces energies comparable to a 1.25 MeV X-ray system and iridium-192 to a 460 keV X-ray system. These isotopes emit radiation in a few discreet wavelengths. Cobalt-60 will emit a 1.33 and a 1.17 MeV gamma ray, and iridium-192 will emit 0.31, 0.47, and 0.60 MeV gamma rays. ![]() Two of the more common industrial gamma-ray sources for industrial radiography are iridium-192 and cobalt-60. As the material rids itself of the neutron, energy is released in the form of gamma rays. Manmade radioactive sources are produced by introducing an extra neutron to atoms of the source material. Corrosion: Energy resulting from the acceleration of electric charge and the associated electric fields and magnetic fields. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |