An innovative acoustic sensor for first in-pile fission gas release determination - REMORA 3 experiment

Conference · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/ANIMMA.2011.6172921· OSTI ID:22039888

Rosenkrantz, E; Ferrandis, J Y; Augereau, F ^[1]; Lambert, T ^[2]; Fourmentel, D ^[3]; Tiratay, X ^[4]

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1. CNRS - Univ. Montpellier 2, Southern Electronic Inst., UMR 5214, F-34095 Montpellier (France)
2. CEA DEN - Nuclear Energy Direction - Fuel Studies Dept. - Cadarache, F-13108 Saint-Paul-Lez-Durance (France)
3. DEN Reactor Studies Dept., French Nuclear Energy and Alternative Energies Commission, CEA Cadarache, F-13108 Saint Paul-Lez-Durance (France)
4. CEA DEN, Nuclear Energy Div., Nuclear Reactors and Facilities Dept., F-91191 Gif Sur Yvette (France)

A fuel rod has been instrumented with a new design of an acoustic resonator used to measure in a non destructive way the internal rod plenum gas mixture composition. This ultrasonic sensor has demonstrated its ability to operate in pile during REMORA 3 irradiation experiment carried out in the OSIRIS Material Testing Reactor (CEA Saclay, France). Due to very severe experimental conditions such as temperature rising up to 150 deg.C and especially, high thermal fluence level up to 3.5 10{sup 19} n.cm{sup 2}, the initial sensor gas speed of sound efficiency measurement was strongly reduced due to the irradiation effects on the piezo-ceramic properties. Nevertheless, by adding a differential signal processing method to the initial data analysis procedure validated before irradiation, the gas resonance peaks were successfully extracted from the output signal. From these data, the molar fractions variations of helium and fission gas were measured from an adapted Virial state equation. Thus, with this sensor, the kinetics of gas release inside fuel rods could be deduced from the in-pile measurements and specific calculations. These data will also give information about nuclear reaction effect on piezo-ceramics sensor under high neutron and gamma flux. (authors)

• OSTI ID: 22039888
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ACOUSTIC MONITORING
CERAMICS
DATA ANALYSIS
EFFICIENCY
FISSION PRODUCT RELEASE
FUEL RODS
HELIUM
IN CORE INSTRUMENTS
IRRADIATION
KINETICS
NONDESTRUCTIVE ANALYSIS
OSIRIS REACTOR
PIEZOELECTRICITY
RADIATION EFFECTS
RESONATORS
SENSORS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE