A preliminary study of CT imaging of water in a carnation flower

We present the trial to determine the water deletion part in a carnation fl ower tissue while drying by neutron computer tomography (CT). The flower pa rt was fixed on a rotating disk and thermal neutrons were irradiated for 4s per projection. The total neutron dose was 6.0 x 10(8) n/cm(2) per project ion. The neutrons penetrating the sample were converted to photons by a flu orescence converter. The photon image was guided to a cooled CCD camera usi ng two mirrors. The sample was rotated, stepwise, every 1 degrees, up to 18 0 degrees, i.e. 180 images were obtained for the CT construction. Horizonta l CT images of several slices of the flower were taken before and after the drying treatment, Vertical CT images of the flower were also constructed b ased on horizontal CT images. It was found that the water around the ovule was selectively removed by the drying treatment. (C) 1999 Published by Else vier Science B.V. All rights reserved.