Development of Ultrasonic Sensors for Operation in a Heavy Liquid Metal

Kažys, R.; Voleišis, A.; Šliteris, Reimondas; Voleišienė, Birutė; Mažeika, Liudas; Kupschus, P.; Abderrahim, Hamid Aı̈t

doi:10.1109/jsen.2006.877997

Cited by 32 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In particular, lead has poorer wettability. In order to improve the wettability many authors proposed coating of array's elements with different metal films-gold, nickel and other [9] [10].…”

Section: Wettabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrasound Imaging in Nuclear Reactors Cooled by Liquid Metals

Svet¹,

Dement'ev²

2015

OJA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In nuclear reactors cooled by liquid metals, ultrasound is the only type of field that allows obtaining images of the reactor cores and diagnostics of the integrity of the fuel assemblies. The article discusses the features of the practical realization of ultrasonic imaging systems based on phased arrays and offers an alternative solution of imaging on the basis of the acoustic lenses of refractive and diffraction types. Using lenses eliminates many of the technical and technological problems associated with the development of multi-element phased arrays. It is shown that lens systems allow using traditional methods of transformation of acoustic fields into the visible images by 2D piezo matrix and a more promising way of acoustooptical transformation based on coherent optical interferometry.

show abstract

Section: Wettabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrasound Imaging in Nuclear Reactors Cooled by Liquid Metals

Svet¹,

Dement'ev²

2015

OJA

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Over the past 30 years, a number of countries including Japan, India, Lithuania/Belgium, France, and Germany have pursued the development of ultrasonic ranging and/or imaging systems for liquid-metal cooled fast reactors (Taguchi et al 1980;Hans et al 1984;McKnight et al 1984;McKnight 1988;Swaminathan et al 1990;Wessels 1991;Lennox et al 1993;Rajendran et al 1996;Karasawa et al 2000;Joo and Lee 2005;Kazys et al 2005;Kazys et al 2006;Kazys et al 2007;Mazeika et al 2007). An initial assessment of these activities is given in a paper by Bond et al (2007b) and a more extensive review is provided below.…”

Section: Summary Of International Research and Development Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(Kazys et al 2005;Kazys et al 2006;Kazys et al 2007) Development work has been performed jointly by the Belgian Nuclear Research Center SCK-CEN and the Ultrasound Institute at the University of Technology, Lithuania. Activities have focused on development of an ultrasonic imaging system for the Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for Hightech Applications (MYRRHA).…”

Section: Summary Of International Research and Development Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The material must be wetable by liquid sodium to exclude gas layers and permit maximum acoustic coupling. To this end, a variety of faceplate and/or faceplate coating materials have been investigated including polished nickel (Taguchi et al 1980), diamond-like carbon (used for lead bismuth cooled reactors) (Kazys et al 2006), gold-coated invar (McKnight 1988), and thermally etched stainless steel with a 1-micron sacrificial coating of gold (Day and Smith 1974a). Thermal etching of the stainless steel in vacuum appears necessary to remove the thin layer of CrO on stainless steel that prevents wetting.…”

Section: Faceplatementioning

confidence: 99%

“…No published data on this material. Diamond-like carbon Demonstrated in lead-bismuth eutectic up to 450°C (Kazys et al 2005;Kazys et al 2006;Kazys et al 2007).…”

Section: Piezoelectric Transducer Elementmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Under-Sodium Viewing: A Review of Ultrasonic Imaging Technology for Liquid Metal Fast Reactors

Griffin¹,

Posakony²,

Chien³

et al. 2009

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Executive SummaryThis current report is a summary of information obtained in the "Information Capture" task of the U.S. DOE-funded "Under Sodium Viewing (USV) Project." The goal of the multi-year USV project is to design, build, and demonstrate a state-of-the-art prototype ultrasonic viewing system tailored for periodic reactor core in-service monitoring and maintenance inspections. The study seeks to optimize system parameters, improve performance, and re-establish this key technology area which will be required to support any new U.S. liquid-metal cooled fast reactors.The earliest information presented herein dates from the early 1970s when the DOE Hanford Site and Argonne National Laboratory were supporting instrumentation development for sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). The most recent U.S. advanced liquid metal reactor (ALMR) design was the Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM). The U.S.-sponsored design effort was discontinued in 1995; however, General Electric (GE) continued development up to year 2000. A number of other countries (especially India, Japan, France, and Great Britain) have built and operated fast, metal-cooled reactors and supporting diagnostic instrumentation for in-service inspections. Piezoelectric transducers have been reported in systems used to: (i) acquire in-core images; (ii) perform ultrasonic NDE inspections; and (iii) measure liquid sodium levels, detect structural anomalies, and detect leaks.This study has served to identify important design parameters and options for an ultrasonic USV system. These include:1. The preferred piezoelectric material for liquid sodium temperatures up to 260°C is lead zirconate titanate (PZT). Higher Curie temperature (T c ) materials such as lithium niobate and lead metaniobate have also been used.2. Most demonstrated USV ultrasonic transducers are of the direct sodium immersion type. Only a few designs use an ultrasonic waveguide to isolate the transducer from the molten sodium.3. Poor sodium wetting of the transducer face has been an issue. Degraded wetting results in inefficient mechanical (acoustic) coupling between the transducer and the liquid sodium working fluid. Solutions have required either coating the transducer face (e.g., with evaporated or sputtered gold) or bonding a metal diaphragm to the transducer face (e.g., stainless steel or nickel).4. Thermal shock damage to the piezoelectric transducer is an important issue. Fracture of piezoelectric ceramics due to high thermal gradients/transients or thermal expansion mismatches at the transducer face or backing layer must be considered early in the design process.5. Cable length between the transducer and ultrasonic transceiver has a major impact on received signal amplitude. The minute electrical charges generated by the piezoelectric transducer dictate use of lowcapacitance, radiation-resistant, high-temperature cables, and cable length must be kept as short as possible. Impedance matching and signal conditioning must be considered.6. To date, most ultrasonic USV systems have ...

show abstract

Reconstruction of Temperature Distribution in a Steel Block Using an Ultrasonic Sensor Array

et al. 2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Permanently installed ultrasonic sensors have the capability of measuring much smaller changes in the signal than conventional sensors that are used for ultrasonic inspections. This is because uncertainties associated with coupling fluids and positional offsets are eliminated. Therefore it is potentially possible to monitor the onset of material degradation. A particular degradation mechanism that we are keen to monitor is high temperature hydrogen attack; where the amount of damage is linked to a drop in ultrasonic velocity which we hope can be monitored for with an ultrasonic array. The changes introduced in the ultrasonic propagation velocity are expected to be of the order of 1 % and in practice they are observable only from a very limited field of view (i.e. from the outside of a pipe) and therefore the reconstruction is challenging to accomplish. In order to explore the feasibility of this, we are investigating the reconstruction of a non-uniform temperature distribution which allows us to quickly evaluate the sensitivity of our method to small spatial variations in ultrasonic velocity of the material. Two reconstruction algorithms were implemented and their performance compared in simulated and real measurements. The results of the tests were encouraging: local temperature differences as low as 10 • C could be detected, which corresponds to a local propagation velocity change of 5 m/s (0.15 % relative velocity change).

show abstract

Development of Ultrasonic Sensors for Operation in a Heavy Liquid Metal

Cited by 32 publications

References 10 publications

Ultrasound Imaging in Nuclear Reactors Cooled by Liquid Metals

Ultrasound Imaging in Nuclear Reactors Cooled by Liquid Metals

Under-Sodium Viewing: A Review of Ultrasonic Imaging Technology for Liquid Metal Fast Reactors

Reconstruction of Temperature Distribution in a Steel Block Using an Ultrasonic Sensor Array

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About