Estimating iron ore grade on the fly as recently blasted ore beds are dumped through a load out into train carriages for transport to ocean side processing (further crushing, screening, fine grading and blending) and loading onto shipping.
It's an 800 million tonne per year operation in W.Australia (somewhat larger than the US ~ 48 million tonne iron ore mining figures (IIRC)).
The alternatives are to find something else that can be "shone" like a flashlight through raw iron ore, and | or for the world to consume less steel.
But the world needs more steel. To build more ships. The world needs more ships. To carry more ore and coal. Because the world needs more steel. Also to build buildings.
This whole "economic" growth is just another bubble ready to pop, similar usefull to crypto in the long run.
You'll also see radioactive sources in household smoke alarms on a smaller scale to estimate smoke load in air, and in mineral exploration in downhole detectors mapping density of surrounding materials, in oil and gas measuring the density profiles of fluids as they flow past, etc.
Flashlights are visible light spectrum sources, gamma emitters are similar in function ( Cs-137 emits a 32 KeV x-ray peak and the 662 keV gamma peak ) as they "shine" through materials opaque in the visible spectrum and can be measured after for absorption.
> Those household smoke detectors were in the 80s, the ones sold now are optical.
No, ionization detectors are still around. They're better for detecting flame fires than optical. Think of when you've seen a campfire and there's been little smoke. There was definitely a fire, but an optical detector wouldn't have detected it.
In contrast, optical is better for smoking fires. Best practice is to have some of each. In fact, I believe some models have both in the same unit.
Another PSA: while you're replacing your old smoke detectors, if you have combustion heat, consider replacing some of them with ones that also detect CO. (You'll have to replace them in 5-7years, though.)
I’ve used troxler portable nuclear soil density readers when I was a civil engineer doing site inspections.
I’m assuming it’s something similar.
Fairly safe. I had a radiation badge which never showed anything. We know the badges worked because someone stored the badge with the nuclear device which caused them to be quite alarmed when that test came back. Keeping distance reduces exposure.
We had to have paperwork from the US regularitiry commission to transport it from site back to office. I remember it was stored in a giant orange box which we tied down in the back of our truck.
Looking it seems like new models are designed not to need that.
