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Title: Framework for Structural Online Health Monitoring of Aging and Degradation of Secondary Systems due to some Aspects of Erosion

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1369370· OSTI ID:1369370

This report describes the current state of research related to critical aspects of erosion and selected aspects of degradation of secondary components in nuclear power plants. The report also proposes a framework for online health monitoring of aging and degradation of secondary components. The framework consists of an integrated multi-sensor modality system which can be used to monitor different piping configurations under different degradation conditions. The report analyses the currently known degradation mechanisms and available predictive models. Based on this analysis, the structural health monitoring framework is proposed. The Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program began to evaluate technologies that could be used to perform online monitoring of piping and other secondary system structural components in commercial NPPs. These online monitoring systems have the potential to identify when a more detailed inspection is needed using real-time measurements, rather than at a pre-determined inspection interval. This transition to condition-based, risk informed automated maintenance will contribute to a significant reduction of operations and maintenance costs that account for the majority of nuclear power generation costs. There is unanimous agreement between industry experts and academic researchers that identifying and prioritizing inspection locations in secondary piping systems (for example, in raw water piping or diesel piping) would eliminate many excessive in-service inspections. The proposed structural health monitoring framework takes aim at answering this challenge by combining long-range guided wave technologies with other monitoring techniques, which can significantly increase the inspection length and pinpoint the locations that degraded the most. More widely, the report suggests research efforts aimed at developing, validating, and deploying online corrosion monitoring techniques for complex geometries, which are pervasive in NPPs.

Research Organization:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
DOE Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517
OSTI ID:
1369370
Report Number(s):
INL/EXT-16-39903; TRN: US1703381
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English