Simple Design Guidelines for Short MRI Systems

BEIBEI ZHANG,1 CARL GAZDZINSKI,2 BLAINE A. CHRONIK,3 HAO XU,4

STEVEN M. CONOLLY,4 BRIAN K. RUTT2
1
Medical Physics Department, Toronto-Sunnybrook Regional Cancer Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2
Imaging Research Laboratories, London, Ontario, Canada
3
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
4
Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California

ABSTRACT: High-performance minimum-length MRI systems are desirable for modern

imaging applications. For this reason, a gradient coil design study was conducted to
investigate the trade-offs among coil diameter, coil length, and imaging region size. We
discovered a scaling law interrelating the gradient coil parameters of interest: the shortest
length L of high-performance gradient coils is a simple linear function of coil diameter D and
uniformity region diameter DSV (i.e., L ⫽ ␣D ⫹ ␤DSV, where ␣ lies in the range of 0.5– 0.9
and ␤ lies in the range of 1.0 –1.9). Hence, based on this simple formula incorporated with
the shortest length formula for minimum-cost homogeneous magnets, we can rapidly
estimate and adjust magnet and gradient dimensions to achieve an optimized, matched
system design for any specified imaging application. Various examples were then provided
to illustrate the application of these simple design guidelines, including a 38-cm-long
unshielded head coil with a gradient efficiency value of 0.66 mT/m/A and a 75-cm-long
shielded pediatric coil with a gradient efficiency value of 0.39 mT/m/A. © 2005 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc. Concepts Magn Reson Part B (Magn Reson Engineering) 25B: 53–59, 2005

KEY WORDS: gradient coils; magnets; minimum length; diameter of homogeneous spher-
ical volume (DSV)

INTRODUCTION is becoming necessary to understand these relation-

The relationship between the gross factors influencing
system size and relative scale in MRI is not well
known to most MR researchers. However, an under-
standing of this relationship is extremely important
for anyone contemplating an MR system customized
for a specialty application, particularly those that de-
mand extremely short system length. Increasingly, it
Received 14 July 2004; revised 13 January 2005;
accepted 17 January 2005
Correspondence to: Brian K. Rutt; E-mail: brian.rutt@imaging.
robarts.ca
Concepts in Magnetic Resonance Part B (Magnetic Resonance
Engineering), Vol. 25B(1) 53–59 (2005)
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.
com). DOI 10.1002/cmr.b.20033
© 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
ships for both the magnet and the gradient coil sys-
tems.
Generally, an application defines the required size
of imaging region and a minimum allowable bore
diameter; therefore, the question of system size is
usually more specifically that of estimating the mini-
mum feasible system length consistent with these
application constraints. A typical whole-body MRI
system available today might be characterized by a
45-cm diameter imaging region, a free (patient) bore
of 60 cm, and a 1.5-m system length. If, for example,
a cardiologist was interested in a system customized
for cardiac MRI and was willing to reduce the imag-
ing region to 15 cm, that researcher may justifiably
wonder if the system length could also be reduced by
a factor of 3, keeping the diameter constant, without
significant loss of system performance. This would be
important in this application because such a system
53
54 ZHANG ET AL.
would be only 50 cm in length, allowing the cardiol-
ogist to maintain visual communication with the pa-
tient during imaging, and opening up new interven-
tional applications. Alternatively, for a customized
pediatric scanner, the imaging region might be spec-
ified to be 20 cm in diameter, the minimum allowable
free-bore diameter might be 40 cm, and the unknown
becomes the minimum feasible system length one can
expect without incurring significant loss of perfor-
mance. To provide some level of guidance in these
areas, this article summarizes the very simple rela-
tionships that exist between system diameter, length,
and imaging region size for both magnets and gradi-
ents.
In the course of designing homogeneous short
magnets using the method of linear programming, Xu
et al. (1) discovered an interesting linear relationship
between the length of the magnet L, the diameter of
the magnet D, and the diameter of homogeneous
magnetic field spherical volume (DSV) to achieve
minimum cost (mass) of the magnet coils (2):
L⫽0.8D⫹1.2DSV. [1]
This simple formula defines the minimum magnet
length for given magnet diameter and required uni-
formity region size, subject to the constraint of min-
imum cost. Because the overall dimensions of an MRI
system are constrained by both the magnet and gra-
dient coils, we investigated in this study whether a
similar relationship to that expressed by Eq. [1] holds
for gradient coils. If so, then a combination of the
gradient coil formula with the magnet relationship
would yield a simple but highly informative design
guideline for short MRI systems.
Only the simplest electromagnetic considerations
were included in our analysis. Without question, there
are many other extremely important factors that affect
practical system dimensions. In particular, from the
perspective of the magnet designer, the mechanical
stresses, stored energy, design of the cryostat, and
difficulty of manufacture are all factors contributing
to the question of practical magnet length. For the
gradient coil designer, coil wiring, potting, cooling
structure, and coil mechanics are similar factors that
further constrain the total dimension of a practical
gradient coil. For these reasons, the relationships re-
ported here between system diameter, length, and
imaging region size are intended only for the purpose
of allowing the nonexpert to develop reasonably re-
alistic expectations for potential customized systems.
In addition, the attempt is made to express the simple
relationships common to both magnet and gradient
system design together and using a consistent set of
terms, variables, and units.
METHODS
The size of the uniform region of a gradient coil is
defined as the diameter of spherical volume (DSV) for
consistency with the magnet formula reported by Xu
et al. (2). Specifically, the DSV for a gradient coil is
defined to be the diameter of the largest sphere within
which the gradient field error is not larger than some
given percent (e.g., 50%) of the gradient value at the
center of the sphere. This error is also called “differ-
ential linearity error” to make a clear distinction with
the absolute field error, often used by manufacturers
in characterizing gradient linear region sizes. The
50% DSV was used to define uniformity region di-
ameter consistently in this study.
Based on the original minimum inductance target
field method by Turner (3), Chronik et al. (4) further
developed an algorithm that incorporated current con-
straints into the target function, called constrained
current minimum inductance (CCMI) method. All
coils in the current study were designed using this
CCMI algorithm. For each design, a set of magnetic
field constraints was used to define the size of the
DSV and a set of current constraints was used to
define the maximum length, L, of the coil. Subject to
these two sets of constraints, the CCMI algorithm
produces the wire pattern of minimum inductance.
Each gradient coil design was evaluated using the
following figure of merit:
␩
M⫽ 䡠a2.5 [2]
冑␭
where ␩ is the gradient efficiency (mT/m/A), ␭ is the
coil inductance (H), and “a” is the coil radius (m).
Merit as defined above is independent of the winding
density (number of turns) used to realize the gradient
coil current density pattern. It is also independent of
the radius of the gradient coil. That is, if a gradient
coil is scaled up or down uniformly in all dimensions,
or the number of turns used to realize the coil is
changed, the value of M will remain constant. Defined
as above, M reflects the value placed on high effi-
ciency, low inductance gradient coil designs. In par-
ticular, M is directly proportional to the gradient ef-
ficiency for coils of equal radius and inductance.
A series of symmetric transverse gradient coils of
different L/DSV was designed for fixed values of
D/DSV. Because body size coils are normally
 SIMPLE DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR SHORT MRI SYSTEMS 55

shielded, whereas smaller coils such as head size or

small animal size coils are often unshielded, both
unshielded and shielded gradient coils were included
in this study and analyzed in the same fashion. Five
different values of D/DSV were used, ranging from
1.35 to 1.88 for unshielded coils and from 1.53 to 2.30
for shielded coils. In the case of shielded coils, the
primary coil diameter was used for D when calculat-
ing D/DSV ratios. The length of the shield was used
to compute L/DSV for shielded coils. For all shielded
coils, the shield cylinder was placed at a radius of 1.15
times the primary coil radius. Shield-to-primary val-
ues of 1.3 or higher are common in present-day
whole-body gradient coils; however, the small
shield-to primary ratio of 1.15 was chosen to maxi-
mize accessiblity for a given outer diameter value and
minimize additional shield length while producing a
reasonable performance coil. Note that the ratio be-
tween shield length and primary lengths is not the
same as the ratio of their radii. In the CCMI method,
shield coils are designed to provide optimal shielding
while minimizing the total coil set inductance, and
this leads to a nonconstant shield-to-primary length
ratio, and particularly a ratio which is not equal to the Figure 1 Merit versus L/DSV for a series of (a) un-
shield-to-primary radius ratio. The shield-to-primary shielded and (b) shielded coils. Each curve is at a constant
length ratio varied from 1.05 to 1.35 over the range of value of D/DSV as indicated by the labels. For each curve,
designs considered in this article. the optimal L/DSV value was chosen to be that for which
For each value of D/DSV, a value of L/DSV was the M value dropped by 0.5 dB from the plateau value.
chosen to represent the shortest coil achievable with- These points are marked as crosses. Coils shorter than this
out incurring significant decrease in M. A “threshold- optimal length suffer from significant loss of M whereas
coils longer than this length gain only negligibly in M. Note
of-significance” decrease in M was arbitrarily chosen
also that for a fixed value of D/DSV, shielded coils are
to be a drop of 0.5 dB (i.e., 5.6 %) compared with the always longer and have lower M than unshielded coils.
maximum possible M value. Linear regression fitting
to the obtained L/DSV values versus D/DSV values
yielded equations for coil length as a function of both proximately exponential approach to an asymptotic
DSV and D. For the unshielded coils, various more value as L/DSV increases. On each curve in Fig. 1,
significant decreases in M were also examined (1 dB, points at which M decreases by 0.5 dB from the
2 dB, and 3 dB) and linear fitting was performed to asymptotic M value are marked as crosses. These
the obtained L/DSV and D/DSV values. L/DSV values are considered the optimal length coil
designs because coils shorter than this length suffer
from significant loss of M, whereas coils longer than
RESULTS this length gain only negligibly in coil performance. It
can also be seen from Fig. 1 that the asymptotic
Plots of M versus L/DSV for each fixed D/DSV value values of M for all the curves increase with increasing
are shown in Fig. 1 for unshielded and shielded coils. D/DSV value.
Note that for the same primary coil diameter and DSV The optimal length values of L/DSV and D/DSV
size, shielded coils are longer than unshielded coils are plotted against each other in Fig. 2 for both
because the extra shield length is required to satisfy shielded and unshielded coils. The results of the linear
the shielding constraint everywhere on the outside regression fits to the data are also shown in Fig. 2 as
surface of the shield cylinder. Shielded coils also have solid lines. For the unshielded coils, the 1 dB, 2 dB,
a lower M value as compared with unshielded coils and 3 dB results were plotted as well. The linear
because the presence of the shield layer decreases the dependency of L/DSV on D/DSV fits all data ex-
efficiency much more than the total coil inductance. tremely well. Specifically, for 0.5 dB decrease in M,
For any constant value of D/DSV, M makes an ap- the R2 values are 0.996 and 0.975 for the unshielded
56 ZHANG ET AL.

Figure 3 Percentage deviations from the gradient strength

Figure 2 High-performance coil length L varies linearly
with DSV and D (i.e., the lengths of high-performance
gradient coils can be computed using simple linear func-
tions of D and DSV).
and shielded coils respectively. For 0.5 dB, 1d B, 2
dB, and 3 dB M-drop unshielded coils, the linear
relations solved for L as a function of D and DSV,
were found to be respectively:
at the center of the candidate coils were computed in the
coronal (x-z) plane at y ⫽ 0: (a) an unshielded head coil; (b)
a shielded pediatric coil (the length of the shield is displayed
as thick vertical lines and the length of the primary coil is
shown as thin vertical lines). The thick vertical lines repre-
sent the physical ends of the coil. The homogeneity levels
(10, 30, and 50%) are labeled on the corresponding contour
lines of the central imaging region. The DSV extent is also
labeled and is always limited by the z length of gradient
homogeneity.
whereas for shielded coils the relationship was found
to be

Lopt⫽0.9D⫹DSV [3] L⫽0.9D⫹1.9DSV. [7]

L1dB⫽0.7D⫹1.1DSV [4] These equations can be used to yield an estimate of

the shortest full-performance gradient coil feasible for
L2dB⫽0.6D⫹1.2DSV [5] a given application in which DSV and D are known.
Design details for the shortest full-performance
L3dB⫽0.5D⫹1.3DSV [6] coil designs of various DSV for an unshielded head-

Table 1 Comparison of Coil Performances

Diameterb DSV Coil Length Efficiency Inductance Merit

Coil Type a
[cm] [cm] [cm] [mT/m/A] [␮H] [(␮T 䡠 m/A)0.5]

Head coil #1 36.0 20.2 49.6 0.80 1200 0.32

Head coil #2 36.0 17.9 38.0 0.66 1200 0.26
Cardiac coil 60.0 17.3 81.4 0.16 1200 0.23
Pediatric coil 40.0 21.5 74.8 0.39 1200 0.20
a
All head coils listed in this table are unshielded and all body coils listed in this table are shielded.
b
Primary coil diameters are listed for shielded coils.
 SIMPLE DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR SHORT MRI SYSTEMS
only gradient coil (assuming a 36.0-cm coil diameter)
are summarized in Table 1. Two other design exam-
ples are also listed in Table 1 for possible application
in cardiac imaging and pediatric imaging, respec-
tively. All gradient coils were designed to an induc-
tance value of 1200 ␮H, which is typical of whole-
body gradient coils. Gradient homogeneity contour
plots are shown in Fig. 3 for typical examples of an
unshielded head coil (no. 2 in Table 1) and a shielded
pediatric coil. Percentage deviations from the gradient
strength at the center of the candidate coils were
computed in the coronal (x-z) plane at y ⫽ 0; contours
of 10, 30, and 50% deviation are shown in the figure.
The DSV extent is also labeled, and is always limited
by the z length of gradient homogeneity. The thick
vertical lines represent the physical ends of the coil.
Note that for the shielded pediatric coil in Fig. 3(b),
the length of the shield is displayed as the thick
vertical lines whereas the length of the primary coil is
shown as thin vertical lines.
DISCUSSION
Based on the Xu et al. (2), linear formula (Eq. [1]) and
the discovery in the current study (Eqs. [3]–[7]), we
observe that similar linear relationships between L, D,
and DSV exist for homogeneous magnets, unshielded
and shielded gradient coils. Knowing these relation-
ships, we can easily match the lengths of the magnet
and gradient coil for the same requirements on region
of uniformity. The linear formulae also straightfor-
wardly indicate that if a shorter scanner is desired, the
bore size or the size of uniformity region needs to be
reduced, unless a significant gradient performance
penalty can be tolerated. Although this statement may
be intuitively obvious to many MR researchers, the
formulae provided in this article allow quantitative
conclusions to be drawn concerning this simple scan-
ner length/DSV constraint relationship.
In the case of head-size coils, shielding was not
considered necessary. On the other hand, shielding
was considered a requirement for body size coils.
Hence only unshielded head size coils and shielded
body-size coils were considered in this study. Head
coil no. 1 in Table 1 was designed using the 0.5-dB
drop guideline. It has a DSV size sufficient for whole-
brain imaging (DSV ⬎ 20 cm), a very high efficiency
of 0.80 mT/m/A, and it is less than 50 cm in total
gradient coil length, which seemed to qualify as a
good candidate for head imaging. However, the dis-
tance between the inferior edge of the DSV to the
inferior edge of the coil may be too large (14.7 cm)
for the patient’s entire brain to access the DSV due to
57
the limitation of shoulders (5). Because of this con-
cern, head coil no. 2 in Table 1 designed using the
3-dB M-drop is a better candidate for head imaging.
Even though the coil merit is much lower than head
coil no. 1, it still has a much higher efficiency (0.66
mT/m/A) than body-size gradient coils, and it is less
than 40 cm long. More importantly, the distance be-
tween the end of DSV to the edge of the coil is only
10 cm, which allows much better access to the 18-
cm-long DSV for whole-brain imaging.
To further illustrate the use of linear relationships
for magnet and gradient coil, here we consider two
additional example applications. For cardiac imaging,
if the desired DSV is 15 cm and the gradient coil
diameter (free bore) is 60 cm, based on Eq. [7] the
minimum length high-performance shielded coil is
approximately 83 cm long, whereas based on Eq. [1]
a minimum-cost magnet length is estimated to be 90
cm for a 15-cm DSV and a magnet diameter of 90 cm.
It can be seen that the cardiac MRI system length is
still strongly constrained by coil diameter (both gra-
dient and main magnet) despite the small DSV unless
a significant penalty can be tolerated in scanner per-
formance. For pediatric imaging, if the desired DSV is
20 cm, the minimum gradient coil diameter is 40 cm,
and the minimum magnet diameter is 70 cm, the
minimum lengths for the high-performance shielded
coil and the minimum-cost magnet are 74 cm and 80
cm respectively. The performance and dimension of a
cardiac coil and a pediatric coil designed using the
simple guideline are shown in Table 1. Compared
with a regular body-size coil, the cardiac coil has
similar gradient efficiency, smaller customized DSV,
and shorter length; the pediatric coil has much higher
gradient efficiency, smaller bore, smaller DSV, and
shorter length. We can also observe that by keeping
other parameters unchanged and reducing the diame-
ter of the coil, the efficiency of the coil increases
dramatically. These examples have demonstrated that
the length of an MRI system is constrained by the
system diameter and the imaging region size. In other
words, dramatically shortening the system without
incurring significant loss of performance demands
reduction in D and DSV. Homogeneous supercon-
ducting magnets usually require approximately 10 to
20 cm extra length for the end coil cross-section and
for the cryostat vacuum insulation layer; gradient
coils usually require approximately 15 cm extra
length for the mounting anchors and end plates on
both sides, and cooling manifold and electrical con-
nectors on one side.
From Figs. 2 and 3, it is clear that if a larger
gradient uniformity region is desired, coil merit
needs to be compromised and/or coil length needs
58 ZHANG ET AL.
to be increased. Depending on the preference of
larger DSV size or higher M, more flexibility can be
achieved by permitting a range drops in M (say in
the range of 0.5 dB to 3 dB) to define the appro-
priate coil length, as shown in Fig. 2 and Table 1.
Only transverse coils were considered in this study
because for the same coil lengths and radii, longi-
tudinal coils produce larger DSV than transverse
coils. Thus the bottleneck in overall performance of
a gradient coil set is always the transverse coils.
Note that the DSV coefficient in Eq. [7] is almost
twice the value of the DSV coefficient in Eq. [3].
This suggests that for unshielded coils the length is
equally restricted by coil diameter and DSV
whereas for shielded coils the length is much more
limited by the DSV than coil diameter. This makes
intuitive sense as the presence of the shield perturbs
the field distribution in the central region, which
causes the reduction in DSV. Another way of stat-
ing this is that for the same total coil length, the
primary coil of a shielded coil set is obviously
shorter than an unshielded coil, which would lead
to a smaller DSV optimum-performance coil. In
this study the shield-to-primary ratio was fixed at
1.15 for shielded coils. For a shield-to-primary ratio
value of 1.15, the coil can be efficiently shielded
without extending the length significantly. For ex-
ample, the shield can be as short as 5% longer than
the primary. However, because the shield is placed
close to the primary, a significant reduction occurs
in DSV, coil efficiency, and inductance. To com-
pensate for these losses, the coil length has to be
extended. It is obvious that varying the shield-to-
primary ratio will have an impact on the coeffi-
cients of Eq. [7]. If the shield is placed at a larger
radius, the coil length will obviously increase.
Meanwhile, a larger shield would cause less pertur-
bation of the gradient field inside the primary coil
so that DSV, efficiency, and inductance will not be
decreased as much as for a closely coupled shield
(6 ). How the coefficients in Eq. [7] would change
with shield-to-primary ratio is an interesting sub-
ject for future study. We predict that the shield-to-
primary ratio could be incorporated into the linear
relationship as an extra term.
Gradient coils generate time-varying magnetic
fields that induce electric fields in the patient, which
may cause peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) if the
electric field strength and duration exceed a certain
threshold (7–9). It is well-known that PNS has be-
come a significant physiological side effect of mod-
ern-day MRI systems that incorporate higher slew-
rate, higher strength gradient coils. As is now
becoming clear in many demanding MRI applica-
tions, if the application demands large DSV, PNS can
easily prevent use of the full coil technical capability.
The operation space of a gradient coil is then divided
into three regimes (10): slew rate limited regime, PNS
limited regime, and gradient strength limited regime.
It has been shown in (11) that PNS parameters of
gradient coils can be predicted from knowledge of the
DSV using linear equations; coils of smaller DSVs
have higher PNS threshold. Therefore, with knowl-
edge of the DSV-dependent PNS threshold equations
derived in (11) and the DSV-dependent high-perfor-
mance coil dimension equations derived in this arti-
cle, a complete prediction of gradient coil perfor-
mance can be derived from simple linear formulae.
This simple scaling approach provides application
scientists as well as gradient coil designers with com-
prehensive yet accurate estimation of gradient coil
dimension/performance without having to deal with
computationally complex and inconvenient gradient
design algorithms.
CONCLUSIONS
We conducted a design study of unshielded and
shielded gradient coils. Important linear formulae
were found relating gradient coil performance and
physical dimensions. Mininum length of high-
performance gradient coils, both unshielded and
shielded, can be computed using simple linear func-
tions of coil diameter and uniformity region size.
For any given imaging application, we can use
these formulae and the existing magnet formula to
rapidly estimate and adjust magnet and gradient
dimensions to produce a truly high-performance
minimum-length MRI system. Design examples
adopting the simple guidelines were given for a
range of specialty imaging applications: cardiac
imaging, pediatric imaging, and brain imaging. The
relationships between MRI system diameter,
length, and imaging region size presented in this
work are particularly useful for application scien-
tists/clinicians who wish to develop reasonably re-
alistic expectations for various customized systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge financial support from Ca-
nadian Institute of Health Research (CIHR) operating
grant GR-14973, Ontario Research and Development
Challenge Fund (ORDCF), and GE Medical Systems
(GEMS). B.Z. was supported by a Ontario Graduate
Scholarship (OGS) and a Ontario Graduate Scholar-
 SIMPLE DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR SHORT MRI SYSTEMS
ship in Science and Technology (OGSST). B.A.C. was
supported by a Natural Sciences and Engineering Re-
search Council of Canada (NSERC) postdoctoral fel-
lowship. B.K.R. holds the Barnett-Ivey-HSFO Research
Chair from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.
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