CONTINUOUS SCANNING X-RAY ATTENUATION TECHNIQUE FOR DETERMINING FUEL INHOMOGENEITIES IN DISPERSION CORE FUEL PLATES

摘要

A sophisticated technique has been developed and success¬fully used for high-speed homogeneity evaluation of reactor fuel plates. Industrial x-ray equipment is used as the irra¬diation source, while a Nal (Tl) crystal optically coupled to a photomultiplier tube serves as the radiation detector. Careful control of the operating conditions produces very accurate and reproducible results.nThe method uses the x-ray attenuation principle, and on recent applications the area of evaluation has been somewhat smaller than 0.007 in.2. Precision mechanical X-Y scanning of the fuel plate is accomplished with longitudinal speeds of 0 to 150 in./min and horizontal indices of 0 to 5 in. in 0.0005-in. increments.