Abstract
Excessive vibration of nuclear reactor components, such as the heat exchanger or the fuel assembly should be avoided as these can compromise the lifetime of these components and potentially lead to safety hazards. This issue is particularly relevant to new reactor designs that use liquid metal coolants. However, identifying adequate sensors or techniques that can be successfully applied to record the vibrations of the components in a flow of liquid metal at elevated temperatures is very challenging. In this paper, we demonstrate the precise measurements of the vibrations of a very representative mock-up of a fuel assembly in a lead-bismuth eutectic cooled installation using quasi-distributed fibre Bragg grating (FBG) based sensors. The unique properties of these sensors, in combination with a dedicated integration and mounting approach, allows for accounting of the severe geometrical constraints and allows characterizing the vibration of the fuel assembly elements under nominal operation conditions. To that aim, we instrumented a single fuel pin within the fuel assembly with 84 FBGs, and conducted spectral measurements with an acquisition rate of up to 5000 measurements per second, enabling the monitoring of local strains of a few με. These measurements provide the information required to assess vibration-related safety hazards.
Highlights
The ability to carry out vibration measurements has become crucial in the safety assessment of many types of engineering structures and components [1]
For the experiments described in this paper, a full-scale mockup of the MYRRHA fuel experiments described in this paper, a full-scale mockup of the MYRRHA fuel assembly was installed assembly was installed into the vertical test section
In this paper we presented the experimental investigation of the flow-induced vibrations in
Summary
The ability to carry out vibration measurements has become crucial in the safety assessment of many types of engineering structures and components [1]. Flow-induced generally the result of the reactor coolant reactors, flow-induced vibrations are generallyvibrations the result are of the reactor coolant interacting with flexible interacting with [9,10,11]. These are typically pins,exchanger shielding reactor internals internals are[9,10,11]. A thorough analysis of a thorough of flow-induced vibration pins is a in crucial of the flow-induced vibrationanalysis of the fuel pins is a crucial aspect of of the the fuel design cycle view aspect of assessing design cycleofinreactor view ofinternals assessing theensuring lifetime safe of reactor internals andreactors.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
