The application of muon tomography to the imaging of railway tunnels

Thompson, L.F.; Stowell, J.P.; Fargher, S.J.; Steer, C.A.; Loughney, K.L.; O'Sullivan, E.M.; Gluyas, J.G.; Blaney, S.W.; Pidcock, R.J.

doi:10.1103/physrevresearch.2.023017

The application of muon tomography to the imaging of railway tunnels

Thompson, L.F.; Stowell, J.P.; Fargher, S.J.; Steer, C.A.; Loughney, K.L.; O'Sullivan, E.M.; Gluyas, J.G.; Blaney, S.W.; Pidcock, R.J.

Authors

L.F. Thompson

J.P. Stowell

S.J. Fargher

C.A. Steer

K.L. Loughney

E.M. O'Sullivan

Professor Jon Gluyas j.g.gluyas@durham.ac.uk
Professor

S.W. Blaney

R.J. Pidcock

Abstract

Cosmic ray muon radiography utilizes highly penetrating cosmic ray muons to image the density profile of an object of interest. Here we report on a trial to use a portable field-deployable cosmic ray muon tracking system in order to image the whole overburden of a UK railway tunnel with short-duration scans (c. 30 min). An unknown overburden void was identified and, after trial, confirmed by railway authorities. These experiments demonstrate the identification of hidden construction shafts with high levels of statistical significance as density anomalies within the data.

Citation

Thompson, L., Stowell, J., Fargher, S., Steer, C., Loughney, K., O'Sullivan, E., …Pidcock, R. (2020). The application of muon tomography to the imaging of railway tunnels. Physical Review Research, 2(2), Article 023017. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.2.023017

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Mar 5, 2020
Online Publication Date	Apr 8, 2020
Publication Date	Apr 30, 2020
Deposit Date	Mar 10, 2020
Publicly Available Date	Apr 11, 2020
Journal	Physical Review Research
Publisher	American Physical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	2
Issue	2
Article Number	023017
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.2.023017

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