A: We demonstrate that muon tomography can be used to precisely measure the properties of various materials. The materials which have been considered have been extracted from an experimental blast furnace, including carbon (coke) and iron oxides, for which measurements of the linear scattering density relative to the mass density have been performed with an absolute precision of 10%. We report the procedures that are used in order to obtain such precision, and a discussion is presented to address the expected performance of the technique when applied to heavier materials. The results we obtain do not depend on the specific type of material considered and therefore they can be extended to any application.

The solubility of vanadium oxide in the SiO 2 -CaO-VO X system was investigated as a function of basicity (CaO/SiO 2 ) at a fixed temperature of 1600°C and oxygen partial pressure of 10 −10 atm. Formed phases and microstructures of saturated samples were identified with SEM-EDS analysis and XRD. Maximum solubility of vanadium oxide was between 15 and 20% independent of basicity. Pure karelianite (V 2 O 3 ) was formed in all samples at saturation of vanadium oxide. The morphology of karelianite changed with the change in basicity in the slag, where needles or threads were formed for slags with basicity B2 = 0.54 and B2 = 0.67 and stars or dendritic patterns were formed with basicity B2 = 1.0 and B2 = 1.22. Wollastonite (CaSiO 3 ) was also formed in the slags with star or dendritic patterns.

Knowing the distribution of the materials in the blast furnace (BF) is believed to be of great interest for BF operation and process optimization. In this paper calibration samples (ferrous pellets and coke) and samples from LKAB's experimental blast furnace (probe samples, excavation samples and core-drilling samples) were measured by the muon scattering tomography detector to explore the capability of using the muon scattering tomography to image the components in the blast furnace. The experimental results show that it is possible to use this technique to discriminate the ferrous pellets from the coke and it is also shown that the measured linear scattering densities (LSD) linearly correlate with the bulk densities of the measured materials. By applying the Stovall's model a correlation among the LSD values, the bulk densities and the components of the materials in the probe samples and excavation samples was established. The theoretical analysis indicates that it is potential to use the present muon scattering tomography technique to image the components in various zones of the blast furnace.