Advanced Manufactured Strain Sensors for Extreme Environments

Conference · Wed Jun 18 00:00:00 EDT 2025

OSTI ID:3029291

Phero, Timothy Le ^[1]; Khanolkar, Amey Rajendra ^[1]; Smith, James A. ^[1]; McMurtrey, Michael D ^[1]; Estrada, David ^[2]; Jaques, Brian J. ^[2]

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1. Idaho National Laboratory
2. Boise State University

Experimentation at irradiation test facilities are essential for reducing the innovation time of developmental fuels, fuel cladding, and structural materials employed in next-generation nuclear reactors. However, due to the harsh conditions generated in such reactors and limited instrumentation space, the evaluation of a material’s mechanical properties is often limited to characterization after the materials have been removed from reactor conditions, or post-irradiation examination. These experiments are costly, time-consuming, and fail to capture the critical time-evolving phenomena that occur during the irradiation experiments. Advanced manufactured digital image correlation patterns and strain sensor devices serve as two promising technologies that can be deployed in the confined and challenging orientations of these irradiation experiments while also providing key insight on salient materials phenomena (i.e., mechanical properties).To guide the development of the printed strain sensors prior to their deployment in critical experiments, the adhesion strength between the substrate and printed film interface is measured via tensile testing and a non-contact laser-induced spallation technique. The establishment of these process control steps helped guide the successful fabrication and testing of direct-write strain sensing devices discussed in this work. The fabrication process controls are necessary for enabling the sustained operation of these strain sensing device through experimentation and minimize the potential for premature failure.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE); USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 3029291
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-25-84804
• Resource Type: Conference proceedings
• Conference Information: American Nuclear Society - Nuclear Plant Instrumentation and Control & Human-Machine Interface Technology (NPIC&HMIT 2025), Chicago, IL, 06/15/2025 - 06/18/2025
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 - MATERIALS SCIENCE
46 - INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
additive manufacturing
adhesion testing
Laser spallation
strain gauge