Durham University spinout company Geoptic, has been honoured with a King’s Award for Enterprise. The award recognises the company’s pioneering approach to assessing the condition and safety of railway tunnels.
The King’s Awards are the highest official UK awards for British businesses.
Railway safety
The award for Geoptic, in the Innovation category, recognises the unique use and application of a harmless form of natural radiation to assess problems in railway infrastructures.
This so-called cosmic ray muon technology can scan structures through thousands of metres of soil and underlying rock. It can then map variations in density caused by voids, shafts and collapsed structures that cannot be seen from within the tunnels.
Before this new technology was developed, the integrity of our many Victorian railway tunnels was often tested using a basic and dangerous method of thumping the roof with a heavy hammer and listening to the sound created to try to estimate hidden holes. Geoptic’s muon detectors are able to do that job on a continuous basis, with great precision without danger to people.
Below the Earth
Founded in 2020, Geoptic is a spinout from Durham University, University of Sheffield and St Mary’s University, Twickenham. It was set up to safely reveal the hidden structures beneath the Earth’s surface. Geoptic has received support from Northern Accelerator, including an early-stage growth support grant. Growth support grants were introduced to support spinout companies to increase their turnover and/or headcount.
The company initially concentrated on developing technology to monitor geo-stored carbon dioxide below the North Sea. This was part of the UK’s commitment to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
A team of geoscientists, particle physicists and engineers developed a tool capable of being deployed in deep boreholes and at high temperatures. Testing occurred in Boulby Mine on the North Yorkshire coast.
This cosmic ray muon imaging technology is now used by Geoptic in a wide range of sectors.
