Development of a non-destructive carbon quantification method in iron by negative muon lifetime measurement

AbstractA novel nondestructive light element analysis method for bulk materials using muon beams was demonstrated. This method is based on the lifetime measurement of muons in a material and performed by measuring muon-decay electrons and identifying elements using the atomic number based on muon lifetimes. Muon irradiation on pure iron and two steel samples with known carbon contents was conducted to prepare a calibration curve for the quantitative analysis. We also performed a muon lifetime measurement for a Japanese sword and successfully determined its carbon content as 0.51  wt% using the calibration curve, without sample destruction.
Source: Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry - Category: Nuclear Medicine Source Type: research