ABSTRACT
Muon tomography is a novel technique that utilises highly penetrating but free and abundant natural radiation to image large-scale objects in a totally non-invasive and non-destructive way. Herein we report on the successful application of muon tomography to the imaging of railway tunnels on the UK rail network and outline a number of other applications that are relevant to the tunnelling industry. The muon tomography technique is described and a brief summary of the recent and past applications the method is presented. A more detailed description of a case study for the technique, namely that of imaging a railway tunnel is discussed followed by a discussion of the methods involved in extracting visualisations of the tunnel overburden which includes examples of results from recent tunnel. In conclusion, an outlook of possible future applications of muon tomography to the tunnelling sector is presented.
