Imaging the inside of thick structures using cosmic rays

Guardincerri, E.; Durham, J. M.; Morris, C. L.; Bacon, Jeffrey; Daughton, Tess Marie; Fellows, S.; Morley, D. J.; Ruth, Johnson, Olivia; Plaud-Ramos, Kenie Omar; Poulson, Daniel; Wang, ‪Zhehui

doi:10.1063/1.4940897

Cited by 11 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…2, from a recent study [68] with a portable muon telescope, illustrates how the muon flux attenuation can be mapped to the internal geometry of a complex building. However, some civil engineering applications in this area demand the ability to discriminate materials by Z, thus requiring the SM method; examples include the survey of the content of a blast furnace [69,70], the study of reinforcement elements in the dome of Florence Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore [71], and the measurement of the amount of wear suffered by a steel-made pipe [72]. The very first muography application in archaeology has been Alvarez et al's imaging of Chephren's pyramid in Egypt [9].…”

Section: Archaeology and Civil Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool

2020

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Imaging methods based on the absorption or scattering of atmospheric muons, collectively named under the neologism "muography", exploit the abundant natural flux of muons produced from cosmic-ray interactions in the atmosphere. Recent years have seen a steep rise in the development of muography methods in a variety of innovative multidisciplinary approaches to study the interior of natural or man-made structures, establishing synergies between usually disconnected academic disciplines such as particle physics, geology, and archaeology. Muography also bears promise of immediate societal impact through geotechnical investigations, nuclear waste surveys, homeland security, and natural hazard monitoring. Our aim is to provide an introduction to this vibrant research area, starting from the physical principles at the basis of the methods and reviewing several recent developments in the application of muography methods to specific use cases, without any pretence of exhaustiveness. We then describe the main detector technologies and imaging methods, including their combination with conventional techniques from other disciplines, where appropriate. Finally, we discuss critically some outstanding issues that affect a broad variety of applications, and the current state of the art in addressing them. a

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Section: Archaeology and Civil Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool

2020

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“…A concrete wall having the same thickness, in radiation lengths, as the inner wall of the dome was built. Both the experimental set-up and the measurement are thoroughly described in [24].…”

Section: Feasibility Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaging the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore using cosmic rays

Guardincerri

Bacon

Barros

et al. 2018

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A.

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The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence Cathedral, was built between 1420 and 1436 by architect Filippo Brunelleschi and it is now cracking under its own weight. Engineering efforts are under way to model the dome's structure and reinforce it against further deterioration. According to some scholars, Brunelleschi might have built reinforcement structures into the dome itself; however, the only known reinforcement is a wood chain 7.75 m above the springing of the Cupola. Multiple scattering muon radiography is a non-destructive imaging method that can be used to image the interior of the dome's wall and therefore ascertain the layout and status of any iron substructure in it. A demonstration measurement was performed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on a mock-up wall to show the feasibility of the work proposed, and a lightweight and modular imaging system is currently under construction. We will discuss here the results of the demonstration measurement and the potential of the proposed technique, describe the imaging system under construction and outline the plans for the measurement. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Cosmic-ray muography’.

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“…This technique is used for applications that require a noninvasive study. It is used in different fields like archaeology [13,14,15], civil engineering [16,17], nuclear safety [18], and geosciences. For this last one, several applications have been proposed, such as prospecting [19,20], imaging of underground structures [17], and volcano muography [12,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of Mudulus: A Muography Detector Based on Double-Synchronized Electronics for Geophysical Applications

Calderón-Ardila¹,

Asorey²,

Almela³

et al. 2022

JAIS

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In this paper, we present a prototype modular muon detector ("Mudulus"), based on our previous experience with the design of the MuTe detector in Colombia and the AMIGA buried muon detectors in the Pierre Auger Collaboration. Our group is developing detectors for muography and multipurpose applications. Our prototype detectors use different modules of plastic scintillators with embedded optical fibers and 64 channel multianode photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) with a common dynode or arrays of Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPM). In the case of Mudulus, each module is made of 12 scintillator strips of (4 × 1 × 100) cm 3 coupled with a lengthwise running Wavelength Shifter (WLS) fiber, connected at each end to a PMT channel. This design allows us to build panels with up to four of these modules. This modular configuration allows changing the panel geometries looking for an adaptive shape or size to the studied object and resulting in a detailed muography image. The improvement in performance obtained with Mudulus is achieved by the combination of its modular design and the double-synchronized detection at the end of each scintillator bar. We take advantage of measuring at both ends of each strip to determine the muon flux using a model to account for signal attenuation in each anode, and then determine the position of the incoming muons with better discrimination and subpixel spatial resolution.

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Imaging the inside of thick structures using cosmic rays

Cited by 11 publications

References 22 publications

Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool

Atmospheric muons as an imaging tool

Imaging the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore using cosmic rays

Development of Mudulus: A Muography Detector Based on Double-Synchronized Electronics for Geophysical Applications

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