Measurement of Diameter Changes during Irradiation Testing
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Univ. of Idaho, Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Inst. for Energy Technologoy, Halden (Norway)
New materials are being considered for fuel, cladding, and structures in advanced and existing nuclear reactors. Such materials can experience significant dimensional and physical changes during irradiation. Currently in the US, such changes are measured by repeatedly irradiating a specimen for a specified period of time and then removing it from the reactor for evaluation. The time and labor to remove, examine, and return irradiated samples for each measurement makes this approach very expensive. In addition, such techniques provide limited data and handling may disturb the phenomena of interest. In-pile detection of changes in geometry is sorely needed to understand real-time behavior during irradiation testing of fuels and materials in high flux US Material and Test Reactors (MTRs). This paper presents development results of an advanced Linear Variable Differential Transformer-based test rig capable of detecting real-time changes in diameter of fuel rods or material samples during irradiation in US MTRs. This test rig is being developed at the Idaho National Laboratory and will provide experimenters with a unique capability to measure diameter changes associated with fuel and cladding swelling, pellet-clad interaction, and crud buildup.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1186756
- Report Number(s):
- INL/CON-14-32816; TRN: US1500172
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 9. International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human Machine Interface Technologies, Charlotte, NC (United States), 23-26 Feb 2015
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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