Patent · US Expired

Method and apparatus for using non-linear spectral fitting procedures on gamma-ray spectral data

US5369578A · kind A · utility

23Cited by
17References
41Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 20, 1993
Grant dateNov 29, 1994
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 20, 2013

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01V5/06
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

A method and an apparatus for decomposing a gamma spectrum representative of an unknown material for determining the contribution of each constituent postulated to constitute the material, wherein an energy spectrum of the gamma rays issued from the material is formed, as well as a composite spectrum made up of individual standard spectra of the postulated constituents and comprising elemental yields being representative of the proportion of the corresponding constituents; the best fit between the measured spectrum and the composite spectrum is determined by modifying simultaneously at least one elemental yield and at least one parameter representative of the conditions under which the measured spectrum and the composite spectrum have been obtained. The best fit may be based on any non linear least squares search for a global minimum of X.sup.2 =(S Y-U).sup.T W(S Y-U), where "U" is a matrix representing the measured spectrum, "S" is a matrix representing the composite spectrum, "Y" is a matrix representative of the elemental yields and "W" is a weight matrix. The non linear fitting method used may be e.g. a gradient search or the Marquardt method.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.