| ABSTRACT: | NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING OF FUEL ELEMENTS FOR NUCLEAR REACTORS
N.R. Kuzelev
VNIITFA, Moscow, Russia.
Ensuring of reliable and safe operation of the nuclear power plants is the central problem of nuclear
power, in particular it depends on quality of nuclear fuel and process equipment for fuel manufacture.
Solving of this problem is directly connected to application of non-destructive testing and diagnostics.
It is possible to mark out two scopes of non-destructive testing which are most important and
specific to nuclear power.
* The testing of nuclear fuel elements (NFE) and nuclear fuel assemblies (NFA) in process of their
production;
* Material engineering researches of NFE and NFA before and after their using in reactor.
Significant growth of NFE and NFA production and increase of their quality requirements raises the
necessity of development the new devices generation for non-destructive testing during production process,
and examination after using them in reactor facility. For monitoring of various parameters there have been
used a wide spectrum of the methods based on various physical principles: radiation methods, a method of
eddy currents, optical methods, etc.
Some examples of recently developed devices are considered in more detail. To them concern:
1. Device for the testing of completeness a fuel column.
2. Device for the testing of geometrical sizes.
3. Device for the inspection of helium pressure.
4. Device for the monitoring of surface contamination.
The new developed devices, as well as created earlier, are based on application of the concept of
Aggregated system of fuel elements non-destructive testing.
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