Muon tomography for railway tunnel imaging

Thompson, L. F.; Stowell, J. P.; Fargher, S.; Steer, C.; Loughney, K.L.; O’Sullivan, Erin; Gluyas, Jon; Blaney, S. W.; Pidcock, R.J.

doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.2.023017

Cited by 33 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Cosmic-ray muons are highly penetrative particles, and muography takes advantage of the characteristics of muons, particularly their penetrative nature and universality, for a wide variety of applications, including visualizing the internal structure of volcanoes 34 , 35 , ocean 36 , railway tunnels 37 , natural caves 38 , and cultural heritage 39 worldwide. Likewise, by utilizing its universality and relativistic nature, cosmic-ray muons can be used for underwater or underground navigations 40 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmic time synchronizer (CTS) for wireless and precise time synchronization using extended air showers

Tanaka

2022

Sci Rep

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Precise time synchronization is an essential technique required for financial transaction systems, industrial automation and control systems, as well as land and ocean observation networks. However, the time synchronization signals based on the global-positioning-system (GPS), or global-navigation-satellite-system, are sometimes unavailable or only partially available in indoor, underground and underwater environments. In this work, the simultaneous and penetrative natures of the muon component of the extended air shower (EAS) were used as signals for time synchronization in environments with little or no GPS coverage. CTS was modeled by combining the results of previous EAS experiments with OCXO holdover precision measurements. The results have shown the capability of CTS to reach perpetual local time synchronization levels of less than 100 ns with a hypothetical detector areal coverage of larger than 2 × 10−4. We anticipate this level of areal coverage is attainable and cost-effective for use in consumer smartphone networks and dense underwater sensor networks.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmic time synchronizer (CTS) for wireless and precise time synchronization using extended air showers

Tanaka

2022

Sci Rep

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“…Other civil engineering applications include the monitoring of nuclear power plant operations (Takamatsu et al, 2015) and the search for nuclear waste repositories (Jonkmans et al, 2013), as well as the investigation of underground tunnels (e.g. Thompson et al, 2020;Guardincerri et al, 2017). A serious deployment of muon tomography in Earth sciences has only begun in the past decades.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

SMAUG v1.0 – a user-friendly muon simulator for the imaging of geological objects in 3-D

et al. 2022

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Abstract. Knowledge about muon tomography has spread in recent years in the geoscientific community and several collaborations between geologists and physicists have been founded. As the data analysis is still mostly done by particle physicists, much of the know-how is concentrated in particle physics and specialised geophysics institutes. SMAUG (Simulation for Muons and their Applications UnderGround), a toolbox consisting of several modules that cover the various aspects of data analysis in a muon tomographic experiment, aims at providing access to a structured data analysis framework. The goal of this contribution is to make muon tomography more accessible to a broader geoscientific audience. In this study, we show how a comprehensive geophysical model can be built from basic physics equations. The emerging uncertainties are dealt with by a probabilistic formulation of the inverse problem, which is finally solved by a Monte Carlo Markov chain algorithm. Finally, we benchmark the SMAUG results against those of a recent study, which, however, have been established with an approach that is not easily accessible to the geoscientific community. We show that they reach identical results with the same level of accuracy and precision.

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“…Due to the mass of a muon, they experience much less radiative energy loss processes (bremsstrahlung, direct pair production, and photonuclear interaction) than electrons, and consequently are much more penetrative than electrons. In conjunction with this penetrative nature and this universality, muography has been widely applied to visualizing the internal structure of gigantic objects such as volcanoes, highway & railway tunnels, natural caves, and cultural heritage in Africa 17,18 , the Americas 19,20,21 , Asia 22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30 , and Europe 31,32,33,34,35,36,37 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First Results of Undersea Muography with the Tokyo-Bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector MAGMA-HKMSDD Collaboration

Tanaka

Bozza

Coniglione

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Tidal measurements are of great significance since they may provide us with essential data to apply towards protection of coastal communities and sea traffic. Currently, the tide gauge stations, satellite-based, pressure-based and ultrasonic-based techniques are commonly used. However, with these techniques, sensors have to be either floated on the sea surface or sunk onto the seafloor. The former option makes it difficult to conduct the tide measurements in high traffic maritime sea channels, and the latter option requires the construction of undersea electric and telecommunication infrastructures to support real time monitoring. On the other hand, with muography, sensors can be located underneath the seafloor inside, for example, an undersea tunnel where the electric and telecommunication infrastructures are more readily available. In this work, the world’s first under-seafloor particle detector array called the Tokyo-bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector (TS-HKMSDD) was deployed underneath the Tokyo-Bay seafloor for conducting submarine muography. Time-sequential muographic data were converted to the tidal levels above the detector and compared with the data acquired from the nearby tide gauge station. The results were consistent, indicating that submarine muography could be an alternative tool for tide measurements. We anticipate that if the length of the TS-HKMSDD is extended from 100 m to a full-scale as large as 9.6 km to provide continuous tidal information along the tunnel, muography will become an established standard, demonstrating its effectiveness as practical tide monitor for this heavy traffic waterway in Tokyo and in other important sea traffic areas worldwide.

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Muon tomography for railway tunnel imaging

Cited by 33 publications

References 8 publications

Cosmic time synchronizer (CTS) for wireless and precise time synchronization using extended air showers

Cosmic time synchronizer (CTS) for wireless and precise time synchronization using extended air showers

SMAUG v1.0 – a user-friendly muon simulator for the imaging of geological objects in 3-D

First Results of Undersea Muography with the Tokyo-Bay Seafloor Hyper-Kilometric Submarine Deep Detector MAGMA-HKMSDD Collaboration

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