Abstract
The development of acoustic techniques for the surveillance of LMFBRs has the objective of providing a monitoring system on-line to give an early warning of incipient failures whilst the reactor is at power at present in the UK. Most attention is being given to safety protection to meet the design proposals for the Commercial Demonstration Fast Reactor (CDFR). One concern in the safety analysis is the hypothetical possibility that a local fault in a subassembly, if undetected could spread to its neighbours, eventually involving the whole core. An early warning of such a potentially propagating event would be given by detecting the boiling of the sodium. The specification of the acoustic technique, and therefore of the development programme, is set by the requirements of the safety analysis and the important features are outlined in the first section of the paper. This is followed by a description of the signal strength from boiling, based on out-of-pile experiments. This signal had to be discriminated against the background noise arising from thc coolant pumps and the subassembly gag and flow noise. The detection of the acoustic signal may now be made by transducers rather than waveguides provided that the transducers are shown to
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Burton, E J;
MacLeod, I D
[1]
- United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Risley Nuclear Power Development Laboratories, Risley, Warrington (United Kingdom)
Citation Formats
Burton, E J, and MacLeod, I D.
The use of boiling noise detection as a protection against faults in sub-assemblies in LMFBRs. Status report of work in the United Kingdom.
IAEA: N. p.,
1982.
Web.
Burton, E J, & MacLeod, I D.
The use of boiling noise detection as a protection against faults in sub-assemblies in LMFBRs. Status report of work in the United Kingdom.
IAEA.
Burton, E J, and MacLeod, I D.
1982.
"The use of boiling noise detection as a protection against faults in sub-assemblies in LMFBRs. Status report of work in the United Kingdom."
IAEA.
@misc{etde_20241846,
title = {The use of boiling noise detection as a protection against faults in sub-assemblies in LMFBRs. Status report of work in the United Kingdom}
author = {Burton, E J, and MacLeod, I D}
abstractNote = {The development of acoustic techniques for the surveillance of LMFBRs has the objective of providing a monitoring system on-line to give an early warning of incipient failures whilst the reactor is at power at present in the UK. Most attention is being given to safety protection to meet the design proposals for the Commercial Demonstration Fast Reactor (CDFR). One concern in the safety analysis is the hypothetical possibility that a local fault in a subassembly, if undetected could spread to its neighbours, eventually involving the whole core. An early warning of such a potentially propagating event would be given by detecting the boiling of the sodium. The specification of the acoustic technique, and therefore of the development programme, is set by the requirements of the safety analysis and the important features are outlined in the first section of the paper. This is followed by a description of the signal strength from boiling, based on out-of-pile experiments. This signal had to be discriminated against the background noise arising from thc coolant pumps and the subassembly gag and flow noise. The detection of the acoustic signal may now be made by transducers rather than waveguides provided that the transducers are shown to be reliable enough and the recent work is summarised in the next section. The estimate of the signal/noise ratio depends upon the transmission of the acoustic waves through the core to the sensor position. There is little experience on transmission in the reactor environment, possibilities for experiments are limited and laboratory tests are being used to improve basic knowledge. Modern computers offer the possibility of improving the sensitivity of detection by advanced data processing and the techniques which are being pursued are briefly described. Although acoustic technology has made great improvements in the last decade, especially in the application of acoustic emission techniques in thermal reactors, there is no experience of the use of acoustics in reactor trip systems. Experience has been gained in the UK in reactor applications through two experimental programmes, the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) and the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR), and these are summarised. The paper concludes with an outline of the system being proposed for CDFR and of the R and D programme being undertaken to substantiate it.}
place = {IAEA}
year = {1982}
month = {Jan}
}
title = {The use of boiling noise detection as a protection against faults in sub-assemblies in LMFBRs. Status report of work in the United Kingdom}
author = {Burton, E J, and MacLeod, I D}
abstractNote = {The development of acoustic techniques for the surveillance of LMFBRs has the objective of providing a monitoring system on-line to give an early warning of incipient failures whilst the reactor is at power at present in the UK. Most attention is being given to safety protection to meet the design proposals for the Commercial Demonstration Fast Reactor (CDFR). One concern in the safety analysis is the hypothetical possibility that a local fault in a subassembly, if undetected could spread to its neighbours, eventually involving the whole core. An early warning of such a potentially propagating event would be given by detecting the boiling of the sodium. The specification of the acoustic technique, and therefore of the development programme, is set by the requirements of the safety analysis and the important features are outlined in the first section of the paper. This is followed by a description of the signal strength from boiling, based on out-of-pile experiments. This signal had to be discriminated against the background noise arising from thc coolant pumps and the subassembly gag and flow noise. The detection of the acoustic signal may now be made by transducers rather than waveguides provided that the transducers are shown to be reliable enough and the recent work is summarised in the next section. The estimate of the signal/noise ratio depends upon the transmission of the acoustic waves through the core to the sensor position. There is little experience on transmission in the reactor environment, possibilities for experiments are limited and laboratory tests are being used to improve basic knowledge. Modern computers offer the possibility of improving the sensitivity of detection by advanced data processing and the techniques which are being pursued are briefly described. Although acoustic technology has made great improvements in the last decade, especially in the application of acoustic emission techniques in thermal reactors, there is no experience of the use of acoustics in reactor trip systems. Experience has been gained in the UK in reactor applications through two experimental programmes, the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR) and the Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR), and these are summarised. The paper concludes with an outline of the system being proposed for CDFR and of the R and D programme being undertaken to substantiate it.}
place = {IAEA}
year = {1982}
month = {Jan}
}