Muon imaging of a blast furnace: The European project BLEMAB

In the central area of a blast furnace, called “cohesive zone,” the high temperature up to 2000 ° C allows us to melt most of the materials in input. The performance of a blast furnace depends on the shape and density of the cohesive zone, and, therefore, its characteristics (i.e., location and extension) are important. Muography, being a passive and non-invasive technique, represents a valid alternative to the most common techniques in the steel industry for the blast furnace monitoring that involve the use of special probes capable of reaching very high temperatures, but which, however, are unable to reach this area before melting or functioning for a long time. The cohesive zone could be passively and continuously observed for a long time with muography and could be visible as a high-density anomaly inside the blast furnace. In this work, the BLEMAB (BLast furnace stack density Estimation through on-line Muon ABsorption measurements) European project (2020-2024) is described. The detectors, the two measurements performed and the first results on the density distribution showing the potential of the technique in the steel industry, will be presented. These results have then been compared with measurements performed in parallel with other techniques such as eMPVP (enhanced MultiPoint Vertical Probes) finding some compatibilities.