Development of new AE technology to detect and characterize leak on nuclear shielding building from inside during integrated leakage rate test

Abstract

French Projects of Investment for the Future, called “Research for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection” have been initiated to further research on the causes, the management, the impact of the observed nuclear accidents and to propose and validate solutions to limit the risk and the consequences. In this context the "Non Destructive Evaluation of nuclear plants containment” project” (ENDE) with eight partners (six research institutes and two industrials) supported by the “National Agency of Research”, proposes a methodology for the Non Destructive Evaluation of the containment capacity. The two major functions to be assess are strength and leak tightness. Under the frame of the VeRCoRs project EDF has developed and build a containment mock-up on the 1/3 scale (diameter 20m, height 20m, wall thickness 40cm) which has been used for some partners of ENDE project. Mistras has been involved in characterisation of concrete cracking during pneumatic proof tests either in ENDE and VeRCoRs programs. Since some leaks occurs in the area of monitoring we use AE to characterized them. The mockup has been used to develop and characterized an instrumentation and technology for leak detection with a major challenge leak detection has to be performed from this inside of the containment building with all the contingences of operating of full scale operating nuclear plant. This paper describe the steps of development and validation of the methodology up to the application this measurement on site help the leak characterisation during pneumatic ten year Integrated Leakage Rate Test at 4,2 bar. EWGAE 35, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 13th – 16th Sep. www.ewg