Monte Carlo modeling of a cosmic ray imaging system for non-destructive evaluation of a reinforced concrete column

A detailed knowledge of the condition of reinforced concrete columns is essential for the planning of maintenance of a large building. We performed a Monte Carlo simulation to examine how well cosmic-ray muon radiography technique works on non-destructive testing of reinforcing concrete and we found that this technique can be an efficient tool for obtaining information such as the size and depth of reinforcing bars beneath concrete. We examined a concrete column with a cross-sectional size of 559×559 mm2, reinforced with steel bars of 52 mm diameter, in order to estimate the positioning accuracy. Using simulations of 6 million muons/sr, we found that the precision for bar size measurement is 4.1 mm and that for bar location is 2.5 mm. We describe a possible inexpensive imaging system capable of determining the size and depth of an object and discuss the technique and the benefits of cosmic-ray radiography.