Adaptation of gas tagging for failed fuel identification in light water reactors
- Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
- Commonwealth Edison Company, Downers Grove, IL (United States)
This paper discusses experience with noble gas tagging and its adaptation to commercial reactors. It reviews the recent incidence of fuel failures in light water reactors, and methods used to identify failures, and concludes that the on-line technique of gas tagging could significantly augment present flux tilting, sipping and ultrasonic testing of assemblies. The paper describes calculations on tag gas stability in-reactor, and tag injection tests that were carried out collaboratively with Commonwealth Edison Company in the Byron-2 pressurized water reactor (P%a) and with Duke Power Company and Babcock and Wilcox Fuel Company in the Oconee-2 PWM. The tests gave information on: (a) noble gas concentration dynamics as the tag gases were dissolved in and eventually removed from subsystems of the RCS; and (b) the suitability of candidate Ar, Ne, Kr and Xe isotopes for tagging PWR fuel. It was found that the activity of Xe{sup 125} (the activation product of the tag isotope Xe{sup 124}) acted as a ``tag of a tag`` and tracked gas through the reactor; measured activities are being used to model gas movement in the RCS. Several interference molecules (trace contaminants normally present at sub-ppM concentrations in RCS samples) and entrained air in the RCS were found to affect mass spectrometer sensitivity for tag isotopes. In all instances the contaminants could be differentiated from the tag isotopes by operating the mass spectrometer at high resolution (2500). Similarly, it was possible to distinguish all the candidate tag gases against a high background of air. The test results suggested, however, that for routine analysis a high resolution static mass spectrometer will be preferable to the dynamic instrument used for the present analyses.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-31109-ENG-38
- OSTI ID:
- 224305
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/RA/CP-88912; CONF-960306-25; ON: TI96007075; TRN: 97:015683
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: ICONE 4: ASME/JSME international conference on nuclear engineering, New Orleans, LA (United States), 10-13 Mar 1996; Other Information: PBD: [1996]
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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