Progress towards prognostic health management of passive components in advanced small modular reactors

Sustainable nuclear power to promote energy security and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are two key national energy priorities. The development of deployable small modular reactors (SMRs) is expected to support these objectives by developing technologies that improve the reliability, sustain safety, and improve affordability of new reactors. Advanced SMRs (AdvSMRs) refer to a specific class of SMRs and are based on modularization of advanced reactor concepts. Prognostic health management (PHM) systems can benefit both the safety and economics of deploying AdvSMRs and can play an essential role in managing the inspection and maintenance of passive components in AdvSMR systems. This paper describes progress on development of an experimental setup for testing and validation of PHM systems for AdvSMR passive components. The experimental set-up for validation of prognostic algorithms is focused on thermal creep degradation as the prototypic degradation mechanism. The test bed enables accelerated thermal creep aging of materials relevant to AdvSMRs along with multiple nondestructive evaluation (NDE) measurements for assessment of thermal creep damage. NDE techniques include eddy current, magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN), and linear and non-linear ultrasonic measurements. Details of the test-bed design as well as initial measurements results for specimens at different levels of thermal creep damage are presented.

[1]  Timothy Abram,et al.  Generation-IV nuclear power: A review of the state of the science , 2008 .

[2]  K. Jhang,et al.  Applications of nonlinear ultrasonics to the NDE of material degradation , 2000, IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.

[3]  David Jiles,et al.  Dynamics of domain magnetization and the Barkhausen effect , 2000 .

[4]  Weiwen Peng,et al.  A Bayesian Approach for System Reliability Analysis With Multilevel Pass-Fail, Lifetime and Degradation Data Sets , 2013, IEEE Transactions on Reliability.

[5]  Indranil Chattoraj,et al.  Quantification of pitting in two tempers of 7075 aluminium alloy by non-destructive evaluation , 2010 .

[6]  Peter Cawley,et al.  A review of non-destructive techniques for the detection of creep damage in power plant steels , 2010 .

[7]  Yoshikazu Ohara,et al.  Evaluation of stress corrosion cracks in metals by linear and nonlinear ultrasound , 2010 .

[8]  E. S. Gorkunov,et al.  Barkhausen noise and its utilization in structural analysis of ferromagnetic materials (Review article V) 5. Effects of volume and surface thermal processing , 2000 .

[9]  R. C. Mcmaster.  Nondestructive testing handbook , 1959 .

[10]  V. A. Krasil'nikov,et al.  Reviews of Topical Problems: Nonlinear Phenomena in the Propagation of Elastic Waves in Solids , 1971 .

[11]  X. E. Gross.  NDT Data Fusion , 1997 .

[12]  Gerd Dobmann.  NDE for material characterisation of ageing due to thermal embrittlement, fatigue and neutron degradation , 2006 .

[13]  C. Hakan Gür,et al.  Comparison of magnetic Barkhausen noise and ultrasonic velocity measurements for microstructure evaluation of SAE 1040 and SAE 4140 steels , 2007 .

[14]  Steven R. Doctor,et al.  Proactive Management of Materials Degradation - A Review of Principles and Programs , 2008 .

[15]  Byeng D. Youn,et al.  Bayesian reliability analysis with evolving, insufficient, and subjective data sets , 2009, DAC 2008.

[16]  Ryan M. Meyer,et al.  Prognostics Health Management for Advanced Small Modular Reactor Passive Components , 2013 .

[17]  Laurence J. Jacobs,et al.  Evaluation of radiation damage using nonlinear ultrasound , 2012 .

[18]  Laurence J. Jacobs,et al.  Nonlinear Rayleigh waves to detect initial damage leading to stress corrosion cracking in carbon steel , 2012 .

[19]  R. M. Meyer,et al.  Requirements for prognostic health management of passive components in advanced small modular reactors , 2013, 2013 IEEE Conference on Prognostics and Health Management (PHM).

[20]  Kyung-Young Jhang,et al.  Applications of nonlinear ultrasonics to the NDE of material degradation , 2000 .

[21]  Ryan M. Meyer,et al.  Technical Needs for Prototypic Prognostic Technique Demonstration for Advanced Small Modular Reactor Passive Components , 2013 .

[22]  Peter B. Nagy,et al.  Fatigue damage assessment by nonlinear ultrasonic materials characterization , 1998 .

[23]  J. Bydžovský,et al.  Measurement of Barkhausen noise and its correlation with magnetic permeability , 2008 .

[24]  Hong-Zhong Huang,et al.  An Approach to Reliability Assessment Under Degradation and Shock Process , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Reliability.

[25]  William T. Yost,et al.  Nonlinear ultrasonic characterization of fatigue microstructures , 2001 .

[26]  G. Dobmann,et al.  Magnetic Barkhausen emission to evaluate fatigue damage in a low carbon structural steel , 2005 .

[27]  István Mészáros,et al.  Characterisation of ferritic stainless steel by Barkhausen techniques , 2004 .

[28]  J. Batey,et al.  Effect Of Surface Mechanical Changes On Magnetic Barkhausen Emissions , 1997, 1997 IEEE International Magnetics Conference (INTERMAG'97).