MuDam

The project aims to adapt the muon radiography technique to the monitoring of containment dams for waste resulting from mining activities, by developing a muon detector with dedicated electronics and analysis software.

Mine tailing containment dams are earthen embankments built to collect mining waste, which contains large percentages of water. These dams are partially permeable to water and subject to instabilities that are difficult to predict, which have often led to serious accidents in the past.

Monitoring dams with traditional techniques cannot always identify the warning signs of a failure and thus enable action to be taken to prevent catastrophic failures. The use of muon absorption radiography could instead detect changes in density in the dam body due to the increase in the amount of water in the interstices. Through the MuDam detector and its 3D analysis and reconstruction software, it would therefore be possible to carry out continuous monitoring of the dams and prevent catastrophic failure events.