Role of Non-Destructive Testing during Manufacture of Zircaloy Structurals and Nuclear Fuel for Power Reactors in India

摘要

Nuclear fuel Complex has been manufacturing critical Zircaloy core structural components and fuel for Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors and Boiling Water Reactors constructed in India since 1971. The quality requirements for any component or assembly that goes into the reactor are necessarily very stringent, because of the enormous failure costs. Therefore, a comprehensive Quality Assurance Program has been put in place to meet this objective. A variety of NDT techniques including Ultrasonic Testing, Radiography, Visible and Florescent Dye Penetrant Testing, Leak Testing, Eddy current Testing and Acoustic Emission Testing are employed at various stages, viz. Raw Material Inspection, In-Process Quality Control and Final Inspection. Feedback from the Reactor sites helped in fine-tuning the techniques of manufacturing and testing. This paper briefly describes the non-destructive tests employed at various stages of fuel manufacture, R&D in NDT, and the status of indigenous development of automated NDT Systems.