Joint Annual Meeting ISMRM-ESMRMB • 16-21 June 2018 • Paris, France

Weekend Educational Course
RF Engineering: Coils
RF Engineering: Coils: Part 3
Weekend Course

ORGANIZERS: Gregor Adriany, Christoph Juchem, Mary McDougall, Greig Scott

Sunday, 17 June 2018
N04  13:15 - 14:25 Moderators:  Natalia Gudino, Michael Twieg

Skill Level: Intermediate

Session Number: WE-13C

Overview
Attendees will receive relevant session and talk recommendations from speakers. In this one-day course, the principles of RF coils used to detect and excite the MR signals will be discussed, beginning with the transmission lines that interconnect the coils to the MR system and extending to single-surface and volume coils and finally RF coil arrays for both transmit and receive. A discussion of the RF modeling tools used to analyze these coils and coil arrays and their interaction with the patient and the environment will lead into the interaction of RF fields with other objects in the MR environment.

Target Audience
This course is designed for MR technicians, scientists and engineers with an interest in understanding physical principles behind MR safety issues related to RF fields, and/or the construction, design or use of RF coils and RF coil arrays.

Educational Objectives
As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:
-Describe the basic theory, design and construction of single and multi-tuned RF coils and their feed networks;
-Illustrate the principles of operation and basic applications of receive and transmit RF coil arrays; and
-Compare and contrast the major methods of RF modeling commonly in use and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each.



13:15
Dielectric Materials & Resonators
Rita Schmidt
This talk will review and explain effects in dielectric materials relevant to MRI. It will cover effects due to the body tissues properties, tailoring of the RF field using high permittivity dielectric materials as well as resonant structure implementations. Applications of dielectrics for MRI in a range of magnetic fields will be shown.

13:50
  UHF Coil & Array Design
Tamer Ibrahim
The clinical and research potential of MRI for whole-body applications at high (≥ 3 tesla) fields and of head applications at ultrahigh (UHF) (≥7 tesla) fields appears to be limitless.  It is however limited by technical challenges.  The most notable of these difficulties include 1) safety concerns regarding exceeding radiofrequency (RF) power deposition in tissue and 2) large image inhomogeneity/voids due to “undesired” RF field inhomogeneity across the anatomy.  The main aim of this course is to explore UHF coil and array designs that aim at addressing these issues.

14:25 
  Break & Meet the Teachers
 
RF Engineering: Coils: Part 4
Weekend Course

ORGANIZERS: Gregor Adriany, Christoph Juchem, Mary McDougall, Greig Scott

Sunday, 17 June 2018
N04  15:15 - 16:15 Moderators:  Natalia Gudino, Michael Twieg

Skill Level: Intermediate

Session Number: WE-13D

Overview
Attendees will receive relevant session and talk recommendations from speakers. In this one-day course, the principles of RF coils used to detect and excite the MR signals will be discussed, beginning with the transmission lines that interconnect the coils to the MR system and extending to single-surface and volume coils and finally RF coil arrays for both transmit and receive. A discussion of the RF modeling tools used to analyze these coils and coil arrays and their interaction with the patient and the environment will lead into the interaction of RF fields with other objects in the MR environment.

Target Audience
This course is designed for MR technicians, scientists and engineers with an interest in understanding physical principles behind MR safety issues related to RF fields, and/or the construction, design or use of RF coils and RF coil arrays.

Educational Objectives
As a result of attending this course, participants should be able to:
-Describe the basic theory, design and construction of single and multi-tuned RF coils and their feed networks; 
-Illustrate the principles of operation and basic applications of receive and transmit RF coil arrays; and 
-Compare and contrast the major methods of RF modeling commonly in use and the relative advantages and disadvantages of each.



  Live Construction of Coils
15:15
  Construction of Rx Arrays
Robin Etzel, Boris Keil
The main aim of this course is to demonstrate MRI researchers/students the basic procedures for phased-array construction and show an optimized protocol for constructing, tuning and decoupling a highly parallel array coil. The goal is to provide a better understanding of the basic experimental RF tools and procedures to facilitate the efficient design and construction of highly parallel MRI receive-arrays. We demonstrate the protocol with the construction of a 16-channel coil array of overlapped surface coil elements.

15:45
  Construction of Rx Arrays
See video link above.
Robin Etzel, Boris Keil
The main aim of this course is to demonstrate MRI researchers/students the basic procedures for phased-array construction and show an optimized protocol for constructing, tuning and decoupling a highly parallel array coil. The goal is to provide a better understanding of the basic experimental RF tools and procedures to facilitate the efficient design and construction of highly parallel MRI receive-arrays. We demonstrate the protocol with the construction of a 16-channel coil array of overlapped surface coil elements.

16:15
  Adjournment & Meet the Teachers
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The International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.