Table-top cancer treatment with microbeams
Design and optimization of a fast-spinning x-ray target for cancer treatment
Problem
Micro beam radiation therapy is a novel and highly promising technique for cancer treatment. It relies on high intensity micrometer sized x-ray beams, produced by a fast rotating socalled x-ray target. It is to be designed and optimized to withstand extreme mechanical and thermal loads while satisfying multi-disciplinary requirements from physics and medicine and ensuring manufacturability.
Goal
A prototype of the X-ray target is designed and built with respect to various physical and technical parameters. In the proposed research, existing and new design techniques such as numerical optimization and solution space optimization shall be adopted, improved and applied. The stability at high speeds will be checked by simulations and testing.
Approach
The development of the X-ray target is carried out based on the munich product specification model. The model supports the systematic consideration of requirement space, functional level, active and building level. In the optimization, existing and new design techniques such as numerical optimization and solution space optimization shall be adopted, improved and applied. The design done with the above methods has been manufactured by LPL and it's partners. It has been successfuly tested for spinning at high speeds of 12,000 rpm without any failure. It is currently being assembled with other components of the micro-beam therapy setup to test of X-ray generation, biological and radiological studies.