Lab-scale Asynchronous Radiographic System*

This talk will provide a status report on the current capabilities of the Lab-scale Asynchronous Radiography System (LARS) which has been developed by LANL for the study of the energy release of explosives. The LARS facility began over a decade ago with X-ray radiography for thermal explosions with a spatial resolution of tens of microns over a field of view of several centimeters and a repetition rate of 100's of Hz. This was used for observing phase changes (solid/solid, solid/liquid, solid-liquid/gas) as explosive systems were heated from room temperature through thermal decomposition stages leading to thermal explosions. In the years since we began the LARS facility, we have increased time resolution to 35 ns using flash radiography and repetition rate to 10Mfps using continuous X-ray illumination. We have added X-ray computed tomography and X-ray diffraction capabilities. The purpose of this talk is to capture the current state of the art for table-top asynchronous radiographic systems. We will also present the future directions and discuss limitations.