Effect of the number of projections in X-ray CT imaging on image quality and digital volume correlation measurement

•Study the effect of the number of projections in X-ray CT imaging on image quality and DVC measurement results experimentally.•Find that DVC measurements on the volume images reconstructed with 36 ∼ 60 projections have similar error levels compared to those with more projections.•Reveal the two-sided effect of the number of projections on volume image for DVC measurement(analyzing from mean intensity gradient and noise level of volume image)•Provide certain referential suggestions for the appropriate selection of the number of projections.