A mobile computed tomography system for on-site cultural heritage analysis

In consequence of the increasing request of on-site analysis the availability of portable systems for imaging paintings and other works of art has become really an issue for cultural heritage investigation. In many cases, authorities do not allow to transport paintings and works of art outside museums because of their value. We thus developed and used successfully a transportable X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) system that the operators can transport in a regular van and then mount inside museums or conservation centers. The system is composed of spare components that have to be properly mounted and carefully aligned in order to perform the radiographic or tomographic analysis. The basic elements are a 200 kV X-ray tube and a 12x12 cm2 flat-panel detector. With this system, it is possible to scan painting and works of art up to 1.5x1.5 m2 of size thanks to three mechanical translation axes. In the tomographic mode, a rotating platform provides high-resolution rotation of the object carrying up to 50 kg in weight. The operators control all the components of the system with a remote connection computer at a safe distance. In the present work, we report details about the development of this transportable X-ray CT system, we describe how it operates and the technical solutions we used and we show examples of application to real case studies with their specificity.