Aging plants and reduced workforces are causing commercial nuclear power reactors to accumulate comprehensive equipment condition information, while at the same time reducing or eliminating the labor costs of manual inspection/data collection. Advancements in both sensor development and wireless technology have resulted in the implementation of measurement devices on important systems that have provided greater information, while alleviating the manual condition monitoring and testing burden on maintenance personnel. Through research and development (R&D) sponsored by a Department of Energy (DOE) Xlerator grant through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a monitoring application has been identified inside the containment of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) that can benefit from the introduction of wireless technology. The identified application uses wireless level sensors to monitor the amount of oil present in the oil collection tanks. The host utility for this project is the Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO) power generating station. ANO system engineers want to be able to assess the amount of oil in the tanks to prevent overflows, as well as to detect any discrepancies between the oil feed and collection tanks, which could indicate an oil leak somewhere in the system. The use of wireless sensors will give greater visibility to the oil level of the tanks without the material and labor cost associated with cable installation.
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