New applications of 10 MeV electrons for reeled goods

Because of their high penetration capability, electron beams produced by 10 MeV machines are increasingly used for the sterilization processing of med ical devices. Worldwide there are already more than 20 such machines in act ion for this purpose. But compared with electron beam sterilization, the ph ysical crosslinking of plastic products with 10 MeV has not been as much in vestigated as in the range of low and medium energy. So the products with h igh wall thickness or big dimensions are still chemically crosslinked as th e penetration and power of the beam of existing accelerators was not suffic ient for those products. But now radiation crosslinking is possible also fo r higher dimensions of reeled goods due to higher beam power up to 150 kW, and one machine with different handling systems can be used for sterilizati on and modification of plastic products. The aim of our work is to examine the homogeneous crosslinking of industria l products by a 10 MeV/150 kW electron beam as for instance for XLPE-c pipe s and heat shrinkable tubes. Furthermore the uniformity of crosslinking esp ecially along the roundness is measured, which is one of the essential qual ity characteristics. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.