Results of Noise Diagnostics in Different Reactor Types within International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Programs

摘要

Without any interference to the operation of a nuclear power plant and without the need of additional instrumentation useful information about the core behaviour and the operation conditions in the primary loop can be obtained by noise analysis of the signals of the standard reactor instrumentation. The purpose is to detect incipient changes of mechanical and operating conditions in order to enable early failure detection and predictive maintenance. Within international cooperation programs vibration, in- and ex-core neutron and primary pressure measurements have been carried out in German PWR, BWR and PHWR type reactors, Russian VVER type reactors, Canadian CANDU type reactors, CE PWR type reactors and French PWR type reactors. Influences of the vibrating reactor- and primary loop components have been identified and analysed. Systematic and reproductive comparison methods, based on the well known noise analysis method, have been carried out with the aim of fault prevention and early failure detection. This contributes not only to more safety but also to higher availability. Practical results from different types of reactors (PWR, BWR, VVER, PHWR and CANDU) are presented.