Development of explosive simulants designed for X-ray-based inspection systems

Explosive detection systems depended on X-ray are the most widely used equipment in airports since they possess advantages like efficiency, accuracy and low cost. It is important to ensure the detection performance of these equipment during their operational process. However, it is challenging to test the equipment because of the unavailability for bulk explosives. This promotes the appearance of the simulants for the X-ray-based inspection systems, which can be used easily by the airports or testing agencies. The simulants need to be stable, non-toxic and should mimic the bulk density and effective atomic number of the real explosives. Besides, the simulants should match different physical properties as much as possible, that will greatly improve the quality of the simulants and make them closer to the real explosives.