Muography for Inspection of Civil Structures

Abstract

Aging infrastructure is a threatening issue throughout the world. Long exposure to oxygen and moisture causes premature corrosion of reinforced concrete structures leading to the collapse of the structures. As a consequence, real-time monitoring of civil structures for rust becomes critical in avoiding mishaps. Muon scattering tomography is a non-destructive, non-invasive technique which has shown impressive results in 3D imaging of civil structures. This paper explores the application of advanced machine learning techniques in identifying a rusted reinforced concrete rebar using muon scattering tomography. To achieve this, we have simulated the performance of an imaging prototype setup, designed to carry out muon scattering tomography, to precisely measure the rust percentage in a rusted rebar. We have produced a 2D image based on the projected 3D scattering vertices of the muons and used the scattering vertex density and average deviation angle per pixel as the distinguishing parameter for the analysis. A filtering algorithm, namely the Pattern Recognition Method, has been employed to eliminate background noise. Since this problem boils down to whether or not the material being analyzed is rust, i.e., a classification problem, we have adopted the well-known machine learning algorithm Support Vector Machine to identify rust in the rusted reinforced cement concrete structure. It was observed that the trained model could easily identify 30% of rust in the structure with a nominal exposure of 30 days within a small error range of 7.3%.

Simulation of a Cosmic Ray Tomography Scanner for Trucks and Shipping Containers

“…This allow the creation of loading scenarios formalized in custom declarations. According to research [20], the mean cargo density is just under 0.2 g/cm 3 . Contraband materials can be hidden among the legal materials or simply randomly replaced in packaging legal materials.…”

“…In Figure 4(a), on each pallet, one randomly selected box of clothes (density: 0.2 g/cm 3 ) is replaced with a box containing an explosive with a density of 1.812 g/cm 3 . Figures 4(b) and 4(c) show a 2D projection of the tomographic image for the scenario of explosives among custom goods.…”

“…Another scenario we considered involves the smuggling of tobacco products hidden within wood pellets, wood bricks, or wooden boards. The density of wood varies from about 0.3 to 1.6 g/cm 3 . A GEANT4 model of the semitrailer truck (13.6 × 2.7 × 2.45 m 3 ) was created (Figure 6).…”

“…Muon tomography, or muography, is a technique that uses cosmic ray muons to produce images of large objects. It has been used for various applications such as underground applications [1,2] and civil engineering [3], industrial applications [4], geoscience [5] and archaeology [6], nuclear waste characterization [7], nondestructive testing [8], noninvasive imaging of the interior of large structures, homeland security applications [9], and safeguards [10], for imaging shipping containers or cargo for contraband [11,12]. When primary cosmic rays, predominantly protons and other atomic nuclei, collide with atoms in the Earth's atmosphere, they produce a shower of secondary particles, including muons.…”

Secondary Beams at High-Intensity Electron Accelerator Facilities

“…High-intensity muon beams have applications in many research fields spanning from fundamental particle physics [21] to material science [22] and inspection and imaging [23]. In particular, the use of high-intensity GeV-energy muon beams could lead to the discovery of new light particles not predicted by the SM.…”