Detection of leak-defective fuel rods using the circumferential Lamb waves excited by the resonance backscattering of ultrasonic pulses

Monitoring of Soft Deposition Layers in Liquid-Filled Tubes with Guided Acoustic Waves Excited by Clamp-on Transducers

“…In our case, the ratio of inner and outer radius is 0.9, which is close to the values for which no significant differences to the dispersion curves of Lamb waves were reported [ 19 ]. Other research groups report that mode conversion effects of corresponding circumferential waves were observed in contact with water in the same way as with Lamb waves [ 22 , 23 ]. These findings further support the appellation of the dominating mode as “A 0 Lamb-type mode” as indicated in Section 3.1.1 .…”

Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)-PbTiO3-Based Ultrasonic Transducer for Detecting Infiltrated Water in Pressurized Water Reactor Fuel Rods

“…Therefore, detecting the presence of infiltrated water in the PWR fuel rods, which indicates cladding failure and lack of mechanical integrity, is very important for the safety of PWRs. Ultrasonic transducers based on lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramics have been widely used in the non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of nuclear power plant (NPP) components as well as in various other industrial fields due to their high performance and ease of manufacture [1,2,3,4].…”

“…The current NDT methods to evaluate the extent of failure of in-service or post irradiated fuel rods are eddy current testing (ECT) and ultrasonic testing (UT) [17]. UT testing for in-service NPPs is typically conducted by its maintenance periodic testing activities after reactor shutting down and the temperature of coolant system is cooled down below 93 °C [1,18,19]. The two experimental studies clearly demonstrated that the piezo-electric constant and crystallinity of the material showed only slight changes (within acceptable ranges) under harsh environments and that variation of the major piezo-electric constants hardly affected the overall piezo-electric performance of PMN-PT.…”