ABSTRACT
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 1000â¯T/m/s in a 6.7-cm-bore set of gradient windings. Pre-equalized, motion-sensitized SPRITE is used to create velocity maps of high-speed (c. 4â¯m/s) water flow through a pipe constriction.
ABSTRACT
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. Extension to 2-D and 3-D imaging was straightforward and images of heterogeneous samples are presented. The FID-SPI measurement results in a series of individual T2(∗) weighted images acquired following RF excitation and pulsed phase-encoding gradients. Key to the performance of the FID-SPI method is high quality control of the magnetic field gradient pulse to ensure each FID point has identical spatial encoding. FID-SPI is intended for a quantitative determination of the spatially resolved fluid content in heterogeneous porous media, having the ability to determine the T2(∗) decay for each image pixel. T2(∗) mapping aids in estimation of the local fluid content.
ABSTRACT
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. This paper outlines a method that utilizes the magnetic field gradient waveform monitor method to directly measure the temporal evolution of the magnetic field gradient from a step-like input function and extracts the system impulse response. With the basic assumption that the gradient system is sufficiently linear and time invariant to permit system theory analysis, the impulse response is used to determine a pre-equalized (optimized) input waveform that provides a desired gradient response at the output of the system. An algorithm has been developed that calculates a pre-equalized waveform that may be accurately reproduced by the amplifier (is physically realizable) and accounts for system limitations including system bandwidth, amplifier slew rate capabilities, and noise inherent in the initial measurement. Significant improvements in magnetic field gradient waveform fidelity after pre-equalization have been realized and are summarized.
