Synchrotron tomography of pressboard during in-situ compression loading : Construction of compression rig, image acquisition procedure and methods for image processing

Sammanfattning: Pressboard, a high density cellulose-based material used for insulation in high voltage power transformers, exhibits stress relaxation during compressive loading. Investigating the micro-mechanical mechanisms responsible for the relaxation can lead to modifications of the production process to control the behaviour of the material. This investigation can be done using Synchrotron X-ray micro Computed Tomography which provides sufficient temporal and spatial resolutions to capture the stress relaxation process. In the present thesis, a compression rig for in-situ mechanical loading during X-ray micro Computed Tomography was designed and constructed. Local tomography scans with sub-micrometre resolution were obtained at the TOMCAT beamline at the Swiss Light Source, Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland. Several fibre segmentation techniques are analysed, together with Optical Flow and Digital Volume Correlation (DVC), methods used for estimating displacement, strain and velocity vector fields. Suitability of the tested methods is evaluated, and it is found that segmentation of individual fibres in a cellulose material of such a high density is probably not possible using currently available segmentation techniques. The movements during relaxation are measurable at the used resolution, and can be estimated using Optical Flow. Further work into correction of image shift due to rig movement between scans, as well as image artefact reduction should allow for measurement and comparisons of displacement during relaxation as well as DVC-computed strain measurements during compression, recreating earlier results.