Cosmic ray detection based measurement systems: a preliminary study

Cosmic rays, mostly composed of high energy muons, continuously hit the Earth’s surface (at sea level the rate is about 10 000 m−2 min−1). Various technologies are adopted for their detection and are widespread in the field of particle and nuclear physics. In this paper, cosmic ray muon detection techniques are assessed for measurement applications in engineering, where these methods could be suitable for several applications, with specific reference to situations where environmental conditions are weakly controlled and/or where the parts to be measured are hardly accessible. Since cosmic ray showering phenomena show statistical nature, the Monte Carlo technique has been adopted to numerically simulate a particular application, where a set of muon detectors are employed for alignment measurements on an industrial press. An analysis has been performed to estimate the expected measurement uncertainty and system resolution, which result to be strongly dependent on the dimensions and geometry of the set-up, on the presence of materials interposed between detectors and, ultimately, on the elapsed time available for the data taking.