Preliminary Application of CT Technology in Non-destructive Testing of Nuclear Fuel Elements

Abstract

With the emergence of various novel fuel elements, traditional X-ray test technologies refer to national standards that have gradually been unable to meet the non-destructive testing (NDT) requirements for these novel fuel elements. As a new NDT technology, industrial computed tomography (CT) has great potential for NDT of nuclear fuel elements. In this paper, through a personalized transformation of self-developed X-ray equipment, we carried out CT scanning imaging experiments up to more than 400 kV on pellet-shell gap in rod-shaped fuel elements, a high-density annular component, and a tungsten-based workpiece. Not only that, after three-dimensional reconstruction and image analysis, it was found that sub-millimeter internal void defects could be detected. Furthermore, size measurements were carried out through image analysis which achieved a relative error of 5%. A conservative conclusion can be drawn from this research: industrial CT, including but not limited to micro-CT, high-energy X-ray CT, etc., has an optimistic future in testing internal defects and measuring internal dimensions of novel fuel elements.