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Muography is useful in many scenarios where physical inspection would be expensive, physically challenging or dangerous. It can reveal the internal structure of large or inaccessible objects without drilling, excavation, or direct contact.

This makes it particularly valuable for applications such as inspecting nuclear waste, critical infrastructure, mineral exploration and cargo scanning. 

Nuclear / hazardous waste

Muon imaging non-invasively characterises nuclear and hazardous waste drums, silos, and vaults by locating high-Z materials, quantifying fill density, and revealing shielding defects or voids to support safeguards and criticality safety.

British Nuclear Fuels case study

Mineral exploration & prospecting

For mineral exploration, muon tomography maps subsurface density to pinpoint high-density ore bodies and structural contacts through substantial overburden, improving target definition and reducing drilling risk.

Bridges, construction & built infrastructure

For bridges and civil works, muon imaging can map internal density through concrete and steel to detect voids, water ingress, reinforcement loss, and hidden defects for targeted maintenance.

  • We’re proud to be supporting the University of Glasgow and Lynkeos Technology’s innovative development of cosmic-ray muography with field trials on our network of road bridges.

    Muography’s ability to look deeper into structures has the potential to transform structural integrity inspection, ensuring ageing public structures are safe and reducing travel disruption.

    Hazel McDonald (Chief Bridge Engineer)
    Transport Scotland

  • Sellafield’s collaborative relationship with Lynkeos, through UKNNL, has helped us solve a complex engineering challenge, of monitoring the evolution of legacy waste in interim storage without breaching containment by using muography.

    Lynkeos has a history of delivering expertise and bespoke alterations to the technology to enable deployment in demanding environments, whilst maintaining the values that Sellafield wish to see in everyone that works with us to fulfil our purpose.

    Alex Allen (Technical Manager, CM&I Lead, SL Retrievals Technical)
    Sellafield Ltd

  • UKNNL has worked closely with Lynkeos for several years to support the commissioning of a muon scanning system in our Central Laboratory at Sellafield.

    The introduction of muon scanning technology has proven to be an excellent example of technology crossover into the nuclear industry, improving safety when testing waste materials. Scanning using muons can avoid unnecessary intrusive sampling, which minimises radioactive dose uptake and spread of contamination from the waste product.

    The system at Central Laboratory has scanned radioactive waste blocks from thermal treatment operations and therefore reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7 in our facility. It’s great to have Lynkeos as a partner in this groundbreaking work.

    Sean Clarke (Head of Capability, Waste Management and Decommissioning)
    United Kingdom National Nuclear Laboratory (UKNNL)

  • Scotland’s exciting innovation ecosystem is unlocking the future of built infrastructure NDT.

    Lynkeos’ world-leading team, smart muography technologies and cutting edge AI software make hidden defects visible to safeguard against disaster.

    Paul Winstanley (CEO)
    CENSIS