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Imaging Cracks in Marble with Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Inert Fluorinated Gases

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Abstract.

Inspired by the challenge of determining the nature of the cracks in the ankles of Michelangelo's statue David, we undertook a laboratory study to image sulfurhexafluoride gas in cracks with magnetic resonance. We made cracks of known thickness between plates of polycarbonate and also cracked samples of marble. SF6 at 20 °C and 1 atm (101.29 kPa) was imaged in the cracks by projection imaging with the free induction decays of 19F. Because a crack appears as a series of bright pixels in a dark background, it is not necessary to make a high-resolution image to see small cracks. It is only necessary for pixels that contain cracks to appear brighter than the surrounding image noise. The threshold for crack detection is the voxel dimension divided by the signal-to-noise ratio of the image. At the field strength of our imager, 1.89 T, and with a data collection time of 4 h for 1 mm isotropic resolution images, our crack detection threshold was 4.6 µm in a 44 mm diameter marble sample. Images showed that cracks which stop inside the sample are associated with expanded pore structure. We calculate the feasibility of imaging the cracks in David's left ankle.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New Mexico Resonance, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

    D. O. Kuethe & M. D. Scholz

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  1. D. O. Kuethe
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  2. M. D. Scholz
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Authors' address: Dean O. Kuethe, New Mexico Resonance, Building C-1, 2301 Yale Boulevard SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA

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Kuethe, D., Scholz, M. Imaging Cracks in Marble with Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Inert Fluorinated Gases. Appl Magn Reson 32, 3–12 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00723-007-0004-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00723-007-0004-5

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