Intelligent Automated Nuclear Fuel Pellet Inspection System

Technical Report · Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1999

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/754854· OSTI ID:754854

Keyvan, S

At the present time, nuclear pellet inspection is performed manually using naked eyes for judgment and decisionmaking on accepting or rejecting pellets. This current practice of pellet inspection is tedious and subject to inconsistencies and error. Furthermore, unnecessary re-fabrication of pellets is costly and the presence of low quality pellets in a fuel assembly is unacceptable. To improve the quality control in nuclear fuel fabrication plants, an automated pellet inspection system based on advanced techniques is needed. Such a system addresses the following concerns of the current manual inspection method: (1) the reliability of inspection due to typical human errors, (2) radiation exposure to the workers, and (3) speed of inspection and its economical impact. The goal of this research is to develop an automated nuclear fuel pellet inspection system which is based on pellet video (photographic) images and uses artificial intelligence techniques.

• Research Organization: USDOE Idaho Operations Office, Idaho Falls, ID; University of MO-Rolla, Rolla, MO (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
• DOE Contract Number: FG07-98ID13644
• OSTI ID: 754854
• Report Number(s): DOE/ID/13644; TRN: US0005085
• Resource Relation: Other Information: PBD: 1 Nov 1999
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
FUEL PELLETS
INSPECTION
NUCLEAR FUELS
QUALITY CONTROL
FUEL FABRICATION PLANTS
ON-LINE MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS
DESIGN
FUEL PELLET INSPECTION
AUTOMATED
PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGE
FUEL FABRICATION