A new CT scanning facility has been unveiled at WMG at the University of Warwick’s Centre for Imaging, Metrology and Additive Technologies (CiMAT).

The facility was officially opened by Dean of WMG, Professor Robin Clark; and Lady Bhattacharyya, the wife of the late Professor Lord Bhattacharyya who founded WMG in 1980.

CT is becoming increasingly important within industry, assisting new manufacturing processes and supporting work on complex products and materials.

Within CiMAT, researchers and engineers use advanced technology, tools and techniques, to deliver impact in a range of sectors including archaeology, healthcare and forensics.

Since first opening in 2021, over 300 projects from 46 different companies have passed through the facility.

An additional £1m has now been invested by WMG, the EPSRC and the National X-ray Computed Tomography (NXCT) research facility to expand research capabilities and to create a dedicated teaching and learning space for PhD students.

Professor Mark Williams, who heads up the CiMAT at WMG, explains: “ The scanning technologies, such as high-resolution laser scanning and microfocus CT, enable 3D characterisation of internal and external structures. With a total of five different CT systems, the group is capable of supporting a wide range of applications, from small scale to large scale, high resolution to high powered penetration for dense materials.”

High profile work includes forensic partnerships with 30 police forces across the UK whereby the use of cutting-edge 3D imaging tech has been used to view injuries in incredibly high detail providing crucial evidence in over 300 murder cases.

Professor Williams add: “The use of CT in a variety of engineering areas is growing rapidly, and we are leading the way in fast scanning technologies. Through iterative reconstruction methods we can bring scan times down from hours/minutes down to minutes/seconds.”

Find out more about CiMAT here: Metrology and 3D Imaging (warwick.ac.uk))