Muography and Its Potential Applications to Mining and Rock Engineering
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Muography and Its Potential Applications to Mining and Rock Engineering Zong‑Xian Zhang1 · Timo Enqvist2 · Marko Holma2,3,4 · Pasi Kuusiniemi2,3,4 Received: 5 February 2020 / Accepted: 9 July 2020 © The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Muography is a novel imaging method using natural cosmic-ray radiation for characterising and monitoring variation in average material density in a diverse range of objects that cannot be imaged by conventional imaging techniques. Muography includes muon radiography and muon tomography. Cosmic-ray-induced muons were discovered in the 1930’s, but rapid development of both muographic techniques has only occurred in the last two decades. With this rapid development, muography has been applied or tested in many fields such as volcano imaging, archaeology, underground structure and tunnel detection, rock mass density measurements, cargo scanning, imaging of nuclear waste and reactors, and monitoring of historical buildings and the inside of blast furnaces. Although applications of muography have already touched mining and rock engineering, such applications are still rare and they are just beginning to enter the market. Based on this background, this paper aims to introduce muography into the fields of mining and rock engineering. First, the basic properties of muons are summarized briefly. Second, potential applications of muography to mining and rock engineering are described. These applications include (1) monitoring temporal changes in the average material density of fracturing and deforming rock mass; (2) detecting geological structures and isolated ore bodies or weak zones in mines; (3) detecting a reservoir or boulders during tunnelling or drifting; (4) monitoring caving bodies to search remaining ore; (5) evaluating and classifying rock masses; (6) exploring new mineral deposits in operating underground mines and their surrounding brownfields. Finally, some issues such as maximum depth muons can reach are discussed. Keywords Muography · Mining engineering · Rock engineering · Rock mass classification · Geological structure
1 Introduction For a long time, it has been a great dream for scientists and engineers in mining and rock engineering to “see” the inside of a rock mass since the rock mass is a complex and opaque natural solid that cannot be deeply penetrated by common techniques such as X-rays. One operationally feasible method to collect information from the inside of rock * Zong‑Xian Zhang [email protected] 1
Oulu Mining School, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland
2
Muon Solutions Oy, Rakkarinne 9, 96900 Saarenkylä, Finland
3
Arctic Planetary Science Institute, Lihtaajantie 1 E 27, 44150 Äänekoski, Finland
4
Kerttu Saalasti Institute, University of Oulu, Pajatie 5, 85500 Nivala, Finland
mass is to use core-drilling to take out cores from the rock mass. However, to know the inside of rock mass very well, the drilling cost will be extremely high since a great number of drill holes will be needed in a specific rock project. Therefore, the d
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