ON GAUGING AND CONTROL OF GRAINY MATERIALS BY GAMMA-RAY ABSORPTIOMETRY IN HYDRAULIC TRANSPORT OF SOLIDS IN PIPES

Grain-size effects on gamma-ray absorptiometry in non-destructive assa y of rainy solid materials with uniform grain radii are widely investi gated. In many applications the grain radii are not uniform, but follo w more or less a distribution function. The present work offers a Mont e Carlo model for gamma-ray attenuation in materials with grain-size d istributions. Suitable correction functions for grain-size effects hav e been derived. A comparison between the Monte Carlo results and those from analytical calculations shows a good agreement when the grain si zes are uniform, but a disagreement appears when grain sizes are stati stically distributed. This disagreement between the two results may be due to the several approximations introduced in the analytical calcul ations.