Development of Thermal Tomography Imaging System for In-Service Nondestructive Evaluation of Additively Manufactured Components
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Illinois Inst. of Technology, Chicago, IL (United States)
- Illinois Inst. of Technology, Chicago, IL (United States)
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
Additive manufacturing (AM) is an emerging method for cost-efficient fabrication of nuclear reactor parts. AM of metallic structures for nuclear energy applications is currently based on laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) process, which can introduce internal material flaws, such as pores and anisotropy. Integrity of AM structures needs to be evaluated nondestructively because material flaws could lead to premature failures due to exposure to high temperature, radiation and corrosive environment in a nuclear reactor. Thermal tomography (TT) provides a capability for non-destructive evaluation of sub-surface defects in arbitrary size structures. We investigate TT of AM stainless steel 316L specimen with imprinted internal porosity defects using relatively low-cost, small form factor infrared (IR) camera based on uncooled micro bolometer detector. Sparse coding related K-means singular value decomposition (SVD) machine learning, image processing algorithms are developed to improve quality of TT images through removal of Additive white Gaussian noise without blurring the images. Following initial qualification of an AM component for deployment in a nuclear reactor, a compact TT can also be used for in-service nondestructive evaluation (NDE). With capability to perform in-service NDE of the AM component lifecycle, TT data can be used for development of a component digital twin. MIT research reactor (MITR) has been identified as a representative environment to perform investigation of feasibility of in-service NDE during shutdown. Preliminary study of radiation level in the MITR viewport, with geometric parameters potentially compatible with compact TT system, has been conducted.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL (United States); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies (NEET)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1661878
- Report Number(s):
- ANL-20/46; 161752; TRN: US2202393
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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