Abstract
Developments and applications of on-line nuclear gauges in the coal industry are highly requested. In this work, a nuclear ash gauge for coal, based on gamma-ray transmission techniques is developed. Single and dual energy gamma-ray beams are used to determine the ash content of coal. The percentage ash content as a function of the gamma-ray intensities transmitted through coal samples is measured and sensitivity curves are obtained. An empirical formulation relating the ash content values to the gamma-ray intensities is derived. Preliminary results show that both single and dual energy gamma-ray transmission techniques can be used to give a rapid on-line estimation of the ash concentration values in coal with low cost and reasonable accuracy, but the dual one is much preferable.