Wear Measurement
The ability to measure wear or erosion in real-time
with very high sensitivity can dramatically accelerate product
development programmes and trouble-shooting. Thin Layer Activation
makes this possible by labelling the surface of a component with
trace levels of a marker radionuclide.
Wear or erosion can be followed either by monitoring the removal
of the marker or by measuring the accumulation of labelled debris,
using simple and robust measurement equipment providing
quantitative results in real-time. Use of this technique avoids the
repeated assembly and disassembly of systems in order to make
physical measurements on components and the risk of subsequent
misalignment. The level of radionuclide used is very small,
requiring only rudimentary handling precautions.