Radiographic Inspection of Fueled Clads

摘要

Five general purpose heat source (GPHS) fueled clads were radiographically inspected at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The girth weld region of each clad had previously passed visual examination, ring gauge test, and leak test but showed “positive” indications on the ultrasonic (UT) test. Positive ultrasonic indications are allowable under certain weld conditions; radiographic inspection provides a secondary nonintrusive means of clad inspection and may confirm allowable anomalies from the UT inspection. All the positive UT indications were found to exhibit allowable weld shield fusion or mismatch conditions. No indication of void defects was found. One additional clad (FCO371) was deemed unacceptable for radiographic inspection due to an unknown black substance that obscured the angular origin on the weld so that the angular offset to the UT indication could not be found.