Adam Stively

Biography

Adam Stively joined Virginia Tech in the Greater Washington DC campus in 2016.  He works for the U.S. Department of Energy via Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico in a variety of emergency response assignments.  Adam is a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH), Certified Safety Professional (CSP) and licensed Paramedic.  He enjoys volunteering as a medic on a weekly basis in either Montgomery County, Maryland or Santa Fe County, New Mexico. Adam holds a Bachelor of Science in Fire Protection and Safety Engineering Technology from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma (1996), and a Master of Science, Management, Pfeiffer University, Misenheimer, North Carolina (2000).

Research Project

Material Identification Utilizing Low Energy Radiography

Technological advances are increasing the prevalence and quality of digital radiography equipment in every subset of x-ray imaging from medical to industrial.  A common use of portable radiography called non-destructive evaluation (NDE) examines the inside of a package without creating any physical disturbance.  The purpose of NDE is to determine the specific contents of a package, of which one important aspect is material type.  The benefits of “looking without opening” are far ranging in today’s high security, low threat tolerance world.  This project utilized low energy radiography coupled with a high-fidelity digital radiography detector to examine whether or not material composition could be determined; ultimately four types of metal were selected for analysis including aluminum, copper, steel, and lead.

Radiography techniques were developed and sampling tools and precision collection methods were designed and implemented.  The ever-present threat of detrimental variables impacting data repeatability were captured and mitigated.  Seemingly boring shades of gray were proven to be characteristically related to material densities of the metal plates.  Target thickness, x-ray source, distance, and dose were studied and a material identification standard was developed.  Using the created radiography/color density standard, material identification methods for “unknowns” were shown to be successful across a variety of thicknesses.  Once variables and their impact on data were understood, they were introduced back into the problem set to verify the material identification standard would endure.  The standard is resilient to changes in dose and distance and proved applicable to a variety of low energy x-ray sources.  To add increasing complexity, stacked material (plates in front of plates) identification of “hidden” material was shown to be both possible and reliable.  These basic but promising results indicate the mundane color density of gray in a radiograph holds a considerable amount of information related to non-destructive material identification.