X-Ray Microtomography of Microcellular Polymers

Among modern measuring techniques, which are designed to reconstruct and to measure three-dimensional aspects of microstructure on mesoscopic scale lengths, the X-ray microtomography seems to be very well suited to yield this information. Generally, X-ray microtomography is the X-ray based non-destructive testing method that was first developed for medical purposes and only recently applied to materials characterization. Monitoring materials’ microstructure using X-ray microtomography allows reconstructing a three-dimensional image of the specimen from non-destructive, serial sections and processing it in order to visualize and measure three-dimensional features. Thus valuable information can be deduced from the correlation of measured stress and strain values with a number of internal geometrical parameters which cannot be measured at the specimen surface.