Novel Developments in Surface Activation

Abstract

In many aspects of fundamental studies of corrosion, erosion, wear and the like, the accurate measurement of material loss from a solid surface is an important objective. Thin Layer Activation, developed extensively at Harwell 1) and elsewhere (see for example Ref. 2) provides a means of meeting this objective in a wide variety of applications. The essence of the technique is to use a high energy ion beam to generate a trace radioisotope label in a well defined layer in the surface of interest. Subsequent loss of material from this surface can then be detected by accurate γ-ray monitoring, either of the surface or of active debris transported by a fluid circuit. This process is now in widespread use for remote monitoring of wear in, for example, metallic automobile components and its potential in corrosion monitoring and plant condition monitoring is beginning to be exploited.