Abstract
Fuel rods in nuclear power plants consist of UO2 pellets enclosed in Zirconium alloy (Zircaloy) cladding tube, which is composed of a body and a plug. The body is manufactured separately from the plug and, before its use, the plug is welded with the body. It is vitally important for the welding zone to remain free from defects after the fuel pellets are loaded into the cladding tube to prevent the radioactive fission products from leaking. X-ray computed tomography (CT) is in principle a feasible inspection method for the welding zone, but it faces several challenges due to the high attenuation of Zircaloy. In this paper, a cone beam CT method is proposed to address these issues and perform the welding flaw inspection. A Zircaloy compensator is adopted to narrow the signal range, a structure-based background removal technique to reveal the defects, a linear extension technique to determine the reference X-ray intensity signal and FDK algorithm to reconstruct the slice images. A prototype system, based on X-ray tube source and flat panel detector, has been developed and the experiments in this system have demonstrated that the welding void and the incomplete joint penetrations could be detected by this method. This approach may find applications in the quality control of nuclear fuel rods.
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