Radiation Physics and Chemistry 71 (2004) 843–851 New uses of X-ray transmission techniques in the animal-based industries C.M. Bartle*, C. Kroger, J.G. West ISOSCAN, Nuclear Sciences Group, Sciences Ltd, Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences, P.O. Box 31312, Lower Hutt, New Zealand Abstract Industry requires non-invasive, high volume and throughput measurement systems to determine properties in productsthatshouldbeenhanced,minimisedorremovedinrealtime.WedescribetheapplicationofdualenergyX-ray absorptionsystemsinnewapplicationsintheanimal-basedprocessingandgradingindustrieswheretherequiredlevels of system stability, accuracy, precision and robustness are now being achieved. We describe some aspects of the radiation physics problems and the results from the industrial applications. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: DEXA; Models; Phantoms; Calibrations 1. Introduction The use of non-invasive technologies in industry has been described by several overviews (Hubbell, 1990; Hussein, 2003; To¨lgyessy and Kyrsˇ, 1989). Increasingly discerning world markets mean that major manufac- turers need to be able to differentiate their products moreeffectively.Thereisaneedtocreateanewclassof very accurate, high-throughput industrial scanning system that can image and characterise physical and chemical attributes of products. The technology should providethecapabilitytolookdeeplyintotheinteriorsof theproductsusingadvancedradiation-basedprobesand to measure very accurately those attributes that should be enhanced, reduced or eliminated. This enables characterisation and differentiation of the products and maximises their market value. Until recently radiation probes meeting these criteria have been largely confined to design concepts but some have been successfully developed to laboratory stan- dards without reaching required industrial technical standards. Some non-invasive characterisation technol- ogies such as the TOBEC method (Gwartney et al., 1993) used in the animal-based industries employ concepts like electrical conductivity, which are inher- ently sensitive to product temperature, geometry and packing variability. Present day analysis of animal-based products is mainly based on laboratory testing of small samples removed from the products by drilling with a hollow drill piece. While this testing may appear to have laboratory certification, further examination shows sample tests are poor quality control indicators and an ongoing source of frustration to processors. The under- lyingproblemwiththisapproachisthatthesamplemay represent only 0.01% of the total processed product at best. Sampling methods can extend to the use of meat grading probes such as that designed by Hennessey (Kirton et al., 1993). X-ray technologies have been applied in the animal- based industries mainly in detecting density variability due to foreign materials such as metal contaminants. Other applications include offline characterisation of products based on combined X-ray transmission and ARTICLE IN PRESS *Corresponding author. Tel.: +64-4-5704655; fax: +64-4- 5704657. E-mail address: m.bartle@gns.cri.nz (C.M. Bartle). 0969-806X/$-see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.radphyschem.2004.04.109