Design of Imaging System and Tomography Detection Method for Radial Tires Structure Under X-Ray Short-Scan Mode

X-ray computed tomography (CT) is a widely popular nondestructive testing (NDT) technology for engineering, which also plays an important role in the NDT testing for radial tires. The steel wires in radial tires are densely arranged and regularly distributed, which usually needs high-energy X-rays to penetrate completely. Due to the limitation of tire size and mechanical structure, it is sometimes impossible to scan full-360 degrees. In this article, a scheme of alternating short-scan tomography for circumferential slices on one side of the tire is proposed, and a set of special X-ray NDT instrumentation for radial tires is developed. This solution solves the problem of transilluminating the entire tire in traditional CT scans and can effectively reduce the maximum penetration energy and radiation dose. Furthermore, the winding problem of high-voltage cable and oil cooling service pipeline in the process of rotation is well avoided. Then, a short-scan CT reconstruction method with the offset rotation center is deduced, which can effectively eliminate the image artifacts caused by the connection line between the rotating center of the turntable and the focus of the ray source that is not perpendicular to the imaging plane of the detector. Computer simulations and experimental results prove the correctness of the proposed compensation symmetry filling reconstruction algorithm. The proposed method can effectively improve the reconstruction accuracy and suppress the reconstruction artifacts. Based on this, the requirements of mechanical assembly precision can be relaxed, which has a certain engineering significance.