Fibre optic sensor based measurements of flow-induced vibration in a liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor set-up

Ben De Pauw, Steve Vanlanduit, Katrien Van Tichelen, Thomas Geernaert, Hugo Thienpont, Francis Berghmans

Research outputpeer-review

Abstract

Fuel assembly vibrations in nuclear reactor cores should not be excessive as these can compromise the lifetime of the assembly and lead to safety hazards. This issue is particularly relevant to new reactor designs that use liquid metal coolants. We therefore demonstrate accurate measurements of the vibrations of a fuel assembly in a lead-bismuth eutectic cooled installation with fibre Bragg grating (FBG) based sensors. The use of FBGs in combination with a dedicated sensor integration approach allows accounting for the severe geometrical constraints and providing for the required minimal intrusiveness of the instrumentation, identifying the vibration modes with required accuracy and observing the differences between the vibration amplitudes of the individual fuel pins as well as evidencing a low frequency fuel pin vibration mode resulting from the supports.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication25th International Conference on Optical Fiber Sensors
PublisherSPIE - Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers
Pages1-4
Number of pages4
Volume10323
Edition2017
ISBN (Print)9781510610910
DOIs
StatePublished - 23 Apr 2017

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