Distance measuring of steel plates by 137Cs and 60Co sources

Distance measuring between two metal plates by γ-ray backscattering is a new method that is applicable for different industries, especially the oil, gas, and petrochemical industry. In the present work, 2, 6, and 10 mm thick steel plates were used as thin, medium, and thick plates to perform the experiments. Also, two sources of 137Cs and 60Co have been used to show the effect of source energy on the accuracy of the measurements. The results showed that the distance measurement depends on the Gamma-ray energy, and for the same measurement accuracy, the Gamma source with higher energy would be more applicable for measuring the distance between two steel plates. Moreover, it was found that increasing the γ-ray energy will increase the accuracy of the measurement. In addition to the energy of the gamma source, the distance measurement depends on the thickness of the two plates, the arrangement of the thicker plate comparing to the thinner ones, and the distance between them. Finally, increasing the distance between the plates leads to reducing the measurement accuracy, which was calculated to be one centimeter.