Application of radiotracer methods for troubleshooting and diagnostic in some industrial facilities: NDT perspective

Abstract

Radiotracer method is principally carried out by injection a small amount of radioactive materials as radiotracer at inlet and measures its concentration at outlet of the system being investigated. In modern sense, radiotracer is categorized belong to the group of non-destructive (NDT) methods because it does not disrupt the system. Coventional NDT techniques focus on static examination, whereas radiotracer technique concerns with flow dynamics of liquid and solid in industrial facilities and environment. It is therefore that radiotracer technique is complementary to the other NDT ones. Injection of radiotracer produces residence time distribution (RTD) curves which represent spent time of injected radioisotope particles in the system. When the RTD curves are then used for further analyzing, some information related to the performance of the system could be obtained. In this paper, some applications of radiotracer techniques either for troubleshooting or for diagnostic in some industrial facilities are highlighted. The discussion will focus on radiotracer in single phase and multiphase flow. The state of the art of radiotracer technique is that it is just applied when the system under investigation is being in operation and radiation detection is carried out from outside of the system. To our experience, successful application of radiotracer technique is strongly depending on good preparation, radiotracer selections stages and mode of measurement.