ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Glasses may develop thick corrosion layers during exposure in the soil. Corroded pieces are extremely fragile and require special conservation treatments. For the characterization of the morphology and the thickness of the degradation layer mainly scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is used. The preparation of samples to study cross-sections is invasive. As part of an EC-project, microfocus x-ray computed tomography (mCT) was optimized for heavily corroded glasses. The mCT device, equipped with a microfocus x-ray source and a CCD camera, is capable of achieving a high resolution. The corrosion layers have a lower attenuation for x-rays than the unaltered glass, resulting in contrasting grey values in the images obtained. The interpretation of the images was achieved by calibrating the method with artificially corroded model glasses and selected originals. With mCT, small fragments can be characterized non-destructively and their internal features and external morphology can be visualized as 3D model.
