Abstract
The harsh environment associated with the next generation of nuclear reactors is a great challenge facing all new sensing technologies to be deployed for on-line monitoring purposes and for the implantation of SHM methods. Sensors able to resist sustained periods at very high temperatures continuously as is the case within sodium-cooled fast reactors require specific developments and evaluations. Among the diversity of optical fiber sensing technologies, temperature resistant fiber Bragg gratings are increasingly being considered for the instrumentation of future nuclear power plants, especially for components exposed to high temperature and high radiation levels. Research programs are supporting the developments of optical fiber sensors under mixed high temperature and radiative environments leading to significant increase in term of maturity. This paper details the development of temperature-resistant wavelength-multiplexed fiber Bragg gratings for temperature and strain measurements and their characterization for on-line monitoring into the liquid sodium used as a coolant for the next generation of fast reactors.
Highlights
The advent of high temperature resistant fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) able to operate in extreme environments for sensing purposes has revitalized research on FBG transducers [1,2,3]
Advanced manufacturing techniques using thermal engineering and/or ultrafast laser micromachining of silica optical fibers have tackled the challenges of making high temperature resistant fiber Bragg grating sensors
High temperature resistant FBGs transducers are intensively studied for the monitoring of generation nuclear facilities and especially for sodium-cooled fast reactors
Summary
The advent of high temperature resistant fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) able to operate in extreme environments for sensing purposes has revitalized research on FBG transducers [1,2,3]. The needs expressed by the end-users consist basically in the following: (i) to withstand an operating temperature of 580 ◦ C continuously for several years ( during the lifetime of a reactor, four to six decades); (ii) to be radiation tolerant, especially versus high energy neutron flux (fast neutrons, E > 1 MeV, cumulated fluence up to 1023 n/cm2 ) and versus gamma radiations (maximum dose rate up to 30 kGy/h leading to more than 1 GGy over 5 years); (iii) to be compatible with “hot” liquid sodium used as the coolant within the core; (iv) to provide a precision equivalent to that of thermocouples; (v) to analyze hundreds of sensing points and (vi) to have short response time (
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