Abstract
An increasingly important need today is to guard against terrorist attacks at key locations such as airports and public buildings. Liquid explosives can avoid detection at security checkpoints by being concealed as beverages or other benign liquids. Magnetic resonance (MR) offers a safe, noninvasive technology for probing and classifying the liquid contents inside sealed nonmetallic containers or packages. MR parameters such as relaxation times and signal amplitudes can be used to verify if the container actually has the liquid that is claimed. This verification, which can be done quickly, will allow for the detection of containers whose contents have been tampered with and possibly replaced or mixed with liquid explosives. The development of MR technology for the detection of liquid explosives has been funded by the Federal Aviation Administration. MR can also be potentially used for the detection of hazards such as chemical warfare agents and contraband such as dissolved narcotics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/995605.stm
http://www.nis.go.kr/eng/activity/terror02.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/headpage.html. and listed links on this site.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/07/26/khalid.confession/
http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/17/border.arrest.03/
Slichter C.P.: Principles of Nuclear Magnetism, 3rd edn., Berlin: Springer 1989.
Becker E.D.: High Resolution NMR. New York: Academic Press 1969.
Farrar T.C.: Pulse NMR Spectroscopy, p. 7. Chicago: Farragut Press 1989.
Canet D., Brondeau J., Elbayed K.: J. Magn. Reson.77, 483 (1988)
Kumar S., McMichael W.C., Kim Y.-W., Sheldon A.G., Magnuson E.E., Ficke L., Chhoa T.K., Moeller C.R., Barrall G.A., Burnett L.J., Czipott P.V., Pence J.S., Skvoretz D.C. in: Security Systems and Nonlethal Technologies for Law Enforcement (Alexander J.B., Spencer D.D., Schmit S., Steele B.J., eds.), pp. 126–137. Bellingham, Wash.: SPIE — the International Society of Optical Engineering 1997 (Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 2934)
Kim Y.-W., Kumar S., McMichael W.C., Magnuson E.E., Moeller C.R., Sheldon A.G., Chhoa T.K.: Glass Bottle Contents Verification System: Phase III, Fieldable Prototype, Final Report for Contract No. DTFA03-94-C-00038, Federal Aviation Administration, 1996; Kumar S., Kim Y.-W., McMichael W.C., Magnuson E.E., Moeller C.R., Sheldon A.G., Chhoa T.K.: Glass Bottle Contents Verification System: Task 11, Task Final Report for Contract No. DTFA03-94-C-00038, Federal Aviation Administration, 1997.
Kumar S., McMichael W.C., Magnuson E.E.: Level 2 NMR liquid analysis study: Final Report, Final Report to the Federal Aviation Administration, September 2000.
Kumar S., Magnuson E.E., Newman D.E., Prado P.J., Lawton J. in: Sensors, and Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) Technologies for Homeland Defense and Law Enforcement II (Carapezza E.M., ed.), pp. 222–233. Bellingham, Wash: SPIE — the International Society for Optical Engineering 2003 (Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 5071)
Kumar S., McMichael W.C., Magnuson E.E., Lee Y.K., Moeller C.R., Czipott P.V., Rayner T.J., Newmann D.E., Wroblewski D. in: Enabling Technologies for Law Enforcement and Security (Bramble S.K., Carapezza E.M., Rudin L.I., eds.), pp. 206–216. Bellingham, Wash: SPIE—the International Society for Optical Engineering 2001 (Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 4232)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kumar, S. Liquid-contents verification for explosives, other hazards, and contraband by magnetic resonance. Appl. Magn. Reson. 25, 585–597 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03166550
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03166550