Under-Sodium Viewing

From IEEE ultrasonics symposium; Monterey, California, USA (5 Nov 1973). Under sodium viewing combines some standard ultrasonic techniques with some new dnta processing methods to perform ranging and imaging fanctions in the optically opaque coolant of the Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor. Pulse-echo scanning methods including both B-scan and C-scan are used in conjunction with a synthesis of these methods by a technique called ISO-SCAN. by combining depth and spatial information from the B- and Cscans, ISO-SCAN produces a 3-dimensional visualization of objects submersed in liquid sodium. Special transducers have been developed to operate in sodium at temperatures up to 550 deg F. This developm ent included a process for promoting rapid wetting of the tainless steel lens of the transducer by the sodium. A lack of wetting prevents acoustic coupling between the transducer and sodium. Experiments conducted in sodium to 600 deg F have demonstrated the ability to locate and identify objects. (auth)