Pyramids, Volcanoes, Railway Tunnels and Nuclear Waste - An Introduction to Muon Tomography
Speaker: Professor Lee Thompson MInstP, University of Sheffield
This is an in-person talk, by Lee Thompson, Emeritus Professor at the University of Sheffield, and Director of Geoptic Infrastructure Investigations Ltd on the use of cosmic ray muons for remote sensing.
Muon tomography is a non-invasive, non-destructive imaging technique that exploits naturally-occurring cosmic radiation, specifically muons, to form images of otherwise difficult-to-access objects. The technique has famously been used to discover hidden chambers in the Egyptian pyramids and to image the Fukushima nuclear reactor after the 2011 earthquake in Japan. Applications of the technique are wide-ranging, the presentation will discuss applications such as void detection in the UK’s national rail infrastructure, the monitoring of stored CO2 in the CCS process and the use of muon radiography in safety and safeguarding in the nuclear waste disposal process.