Industrial radiography is a modality of non-destructive testing that uses ionizing radiation to inspect materials and components with the objective of locating and quantifying defects and degradation in material properties that would lead to the failure of engineering structures. It plays an important role in the science and technology needed to ensure product quality and reliability. In Australia, industrial radiographic non-destructive testing is colloquially referred to as “bombing” a component with a “bomb”.

Industrial Radiography uses either X-rays, produced with X-ray generators, or gamma rays generated by the natural radioactivity of sealed radionuclide sources. Neutrons can also be used. After crossing the specimen, photons are captured by a detector, such as a silver halide film, a phosphor plate, flat panel detector or CdTe detector. The examination can be performed in static 2D (named radiography), in real time 2D (fluoroscopy), or in 3D after image reconstruction (computed tomography or CT). It is also possible to perform tomography nearly in real time (4-dimensional computed tomography or 4DCT). Particular techniques such as X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), and several other ones complete the range of tools that can be used in industrial radiography.

Inspection techniques can be portable or stationary. Industrial radiography is used in welding, casting parts or composite pieces inspection, in food inspection and luggage control, in sorting and recycling, in EOD and IED analysis, aircraft maintenance, ballistics, turbine inspection, in surface characterisation, coating thickness measurement, in counterfeit