The identification of corrosion, cracks and defects in pipelines used for transporting oil and gas can reduce the possibility of leaks, and consequently, it can limit the extent of an environmental disaster, public hazard and the associated financial impact of such events. Typically, corrosion in oil pipelines is measured with non-destructive ultrasonic or electromagnetic techniques, on the basis that corrosion and defects are often manifest as a change of thickness in the steel from which pipelines are made. However, such approaches are not practical for underground pipelines and their deployment can be complicated for the case of pipelines covered by insulation. in this paper, we present an innovative, non-destructive testing technique, which exploits the backscatter of a combination of fast-neutron and γ radiation from steel samples of a variety of thicknesses consistent with changes that might arise due to corrosion of a pipe wall. our research demonstrates the potential to measure and characterise different steel thicknesses by detecting both the elastic, fast-neutron backscatter and the Comptonscattered γ radiations, simultaneously. further, we demonstrate that the presence of insulation yields a consistent and separable influence on the experimental, wall-thickness measurements. The data from experimental measurements are supported by a comprehensive Monte carlo computer simulation study.The processes by which mechanical and electromagnetic waves are reflected by materials, are phenomena exploited by a variety of animal species for orientation, to procure food and for a great diversity of other purposes. A biomimetic relationship exists in this regard between the natural world and technological human achievements, exemplified on the one hand by the reliance of some species of mammals (predominantly bats) on ultrasound, with which to hunt, avoid predators and even to classify different types of plants 1-5 , and on the other by sonar 6 . The latter is central to a wide variety of non-destructive, industrial assessment techniques and a related international industry, such as the measurement of distance, density, porosity and imaging. Similar analogies exist for the case of reflected electromagnetic waves, e.g., sight, radar 7 etc.Amongst the first observations of the scattering of particles are those of Rutherford in his famous gold foil experiments (1908)(1909)(1910)(1911)(1912)(1913). At the atomic scale, the reflections of waves and particles approach one another phenomenologically, and offer one of the founding scientific observations supporting wave-particle duality. In this regard, neutron scattering and its applications are perhaps amongst the most remarkable and tangible exemplars of quantum-mechanics. As to whether a scattering process is elastic or inelastic is inferred by the corresponding isotopic cross section, calculated on the basis of neutrons affording properties of complex plane waves. Below the MeV range in energy, the radiation wavelength is much greater than the range of the strong nuclea...