Micro X-ray Radiography for the Coating Thickness Measurement in the Simulated TRISO-coated Fuel Particle
- Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 150 Duk-jin Dong, Yusong, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)
- DRGEM Corp. 388-1, Asan Medical Center, Songpa, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)
- Chungnam National University, 220 Goong Dong, Yusong, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)
TRISO(Tri-Isotropic)-coated fuel particle is utilized owing to its higher stability at a high temperature and its efficient retention capability for fission products in the HTGR(high temperature gas-cooled reactor). The typical spherical TRISO-coated fuel particle with a diameter of about 1 mm is composed of a nuclear fuel kernel and outer coating layers. The outer coating layers consist of a buffer PyC (pyrolytic carbon) layer, an inner PyC(I-PyC) layer, a SiC layer, and an outer PyC(O-PyC) layer. Most of the inspection items for the TRISO-coated fuel particle depend on the destructive methods. Recently, X-ray radiography or X-ray CT methods are being applied to nondestructively measure the thickness of the coating layers at the relevant research organizations in the world. The destructive method is very accurate, but it is difficult to prepare test samples. Above all, the number of destructive test samples must be minimized during the fabrication process due to the generation of radioactive wastes during the test procedures. The thickness of the coating layers of the TRISO fuel particle can be nondestructively measured by the X-ray radiography without generating radioactive wastes. In this study, the thickness of coating layers for a simulated TRISO-coated fuel particle with a ZrO{sub 2} kernel instead of a UO{sub 2} kernel was measured by using micro-focus X-ray radiography. The used X-ray system is the Harmony 130 developed at DRGEM Corporation in Korea. The maximum tube voltage/current of the X-ray generator is 130 kV/400 {mu}A. The focus spot size of the X-ray generator is 5 {mu}m. The resolution of the used electronic X-ray detector is 48 {mu}m. The number of pixels is 1024 x 1024. And, the intensity resolution of a pixel is 12 bit (4096 gray levels). The tube voltage/current was 40 kV/100 {mu}A under the inspection condition. Here, the distance from the source to the detector was 397 mm, and the distance from the source to the center of the object ranged from 10 to 50 mm. The exposure time was adjusted to acquire images with a good quality of the boundaries. The radiographic image was also enhanced by an image processing technique to acquire clear boundary lines between the coating layers. The boundary lines were detected on the enhanced image. The thickness of the coating layers was computed by measuring the distance between the boundary lines. The thickness of the coating layers was effectively measured by applying the micro-focus X-ray radiography by using the precise X-ray generator and the electronic detector with a high resolution. The inspection process for the TRISO-coated fuel particles will be improved by the developed micro-focus X-ray radiography technology. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21021171
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2006 International congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, Reno - Nevada (United States), 4-8 Jun 2006; Other Information: Country of input: France; 13 refs; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2006 international congress on advances in nuclear power plants - ICAPP'06, 2734 pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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