Development of a non-destructive depth-selective quantification method for sub-percent carbon contents in steel using negative muon lifetime analysis

二宮 和彦*; 久保 謙哉*; 稲垣 誠*; 吉田 剛*; Chiu, I.-H.; 工藤 拓人*; 浅利 駿介*; 千徳 佐和子*; 竹下 聡史*; 下村 浩一郎*; 河村 成肇*; Strasser, P.*; 三宅 康博*; 伊藤 孝   ; 髭本 亘  ; 齋藤 努*

Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Kubo, Kenya*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Yoshida, Go*; Chiu, I.-H. ; Kudo, Takuto*; Asari, Shunsuke*; Sentoku, Sawako*; Takeshita, Soshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Strasser, P.*; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Ito, Takashi; Higemoto, Wataru; Saito, Tsutomu*

鋼の特性を決める上で重要な鋼中のC量は、鋼の生産技術に大きく左右される。このため、ミュオンを使って鋼のC含有量を非破壊で測定する新しい方法を提案する。この方法は、生産中の鋼の品質管理だけでなく、貴重な鋼製考古学的遺物の分析にも使えるかもしれない。負の電荷を持つミュオンは原子系を形成し、最終的には核に吸収されるか電子に崩壊する。ミュオンの寿命は、Fe原子かC原子に捕らわれるかによってかなり違い、ミュオン停止位置での元素含有量をミュオン寿命測定で特定できる。C/Feのミュオン捕獲確率とCの元素含有量の関係は直線的で、ミュオン寿命測定で鋼のC含有量を定量的に決められる。さらに、ミュオンの入射エネルギーを調整して、0.5mm厚の3種類の鋼板からなる積層サンプルの各層でミュオンを停止させ、0.20-1.03wt%の範囲でC含有量を深さ選択的に、サンプルを壊さずに決定することに成功した。

The amount of C in steel, which is critical in determining its properties, is strongly influenced by steel production technology. We propose a novel method of quantifying the bulk C content in steel non-destructively using muons. This revolutionary method may be used not only in the quality control of steel in production, but also in analyzing precious steel archaeological artifacts. A negatively charged muon forms an atomic system owing to its negative charge, and is finally absorbed into the nucleus or decays to an electron. The lifetimes of muons differ significantly, depending on whether they are trapped by Fe or C atoms, and identifying the elemental content at the muon stoppage position is possible via muon lifetime measurements. The relationship between the muon capture probabilities of C/Fe and the elemental content of C exhibits a good linearity, and the C content in the steel may be quantitatively determined via muon lifetime measurements. Furthermore, by controlling the incident energies of the muons, they may be stopped in each layer of a stacked sample consisting of three types of steel plates with thicknesses of 0.5 mm, and we successfully determined the C contents in the range 0.20 - 1.03 wt% depth-selectively, without sample destruction.