Magnetic field gradient waveform correction of motion-sensitized SPRITE by pre-equalization.

Eddy currents caused by pulsed field gradients in magnetic resonance measurements of high-speed flow cause the magnetic field gradient amplitude waveform experienced by the sample to be different from the waveform demanded of the magnetic field gradient amplifiers. By measuring and using the system impulse response, pre-equalization magnetic field gradient waveform correction can be used to counteract the resulting errors in measured signal phase at the cost of minimal additional experimental time. The effectiveness of the pre-equalization method of magnetic field gradient waveform correction is tested with a motion-sensitized (pulsed field gradient) version of the SPRITE imaging pulse sequence which requires extreme gradient slew rates in excess of 1000 T/m/s in a 6.

A high-pressure metallic core holder for magnetic resonance based on Hastelloy-C.

A metallic core holder, fabricated from non-magnetic Hastelloy-C276, has been designed for Magnetic Resonance (MR) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of core plug samples at high pressures and temperatures. Core plug samples, 1.5″ in diameter and 2″ in length, can be tested in the core holder at elevated pressures and temperatures, up to 5000 psi and 80 °C.

Mapping B(1)-induced eddy current effects near metallic structures in MR images: a comparison of simulation and experiment.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the presence of metallic structures is very common in medical and non-medical fields. Metallic structures cause MRI image distortions by three mechanisms: (1) static field distortion through magnetic susceptibility mismatch, (2) eddy currents induced by switched magnetic field gradients and (3) radio frequency (RF) induced eddy currents. Single point ramped imaging with T1 enhancement (SPRITE) MRI measurements are largely immune to susceptibility and gradient induced eddy current artifacts.

FID-SPI pulse sequence for quantitative MRI of fluids in porous media.

MRI has great potential for providing quantitative, spatially resolved information about fluids imbibed in porous media. The pure phase encode SPRITE technique has proven to be a very general method for the generation of density images in porous media; however, low flip-angle RF pulses and broad filter widths, required by short encoding times, yield sub-optimal S/N images. A 1-D phase-encoding sequence for T2(∗) mapping, named FID-SPI, is presented and analyzed in terms of image quality and accuracy of fluid content distribution in porous media.

Arbitrary magnetic field gradient waveform correction using an impulse response based pre-equalization technique.

The time-varying magnetic fields used in magnetic resonance applications result in the induction of eddy currents on conductive structures in the vicinity of both the sample under investigation and the gradient coils. These eddy currents typically result in undesired degradations of image quality for MRI applications. Their ubiquitous nature has resulted in the development of various approaches to characterize and minimize their impact on image quality.