Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record
The bow of the nuclear fuel assembly is a well-known phenomenon. One of the vital criteria during the history of nuclear fuel development has been fuel assembly’s mechanical stability. Once present, the fuel assembly bow can lead to safety issues like excessive water gap and power redistribution or...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2023-04-01
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| Series: | Nuclear Engineering and Technology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S173857332200599X |
| _version_ | 1827959451741585408 |
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| author | Dušan Plašienka Jaroslav Knotek Marcin Kopeć Martina Malá Jan Blažek |
| author_facet | Dušan Plašienka Jaroslav Knotek Marcin Kopeć Martina Malá Jan Blažek |
| author_sort | Dušan Plašienka |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The bow of the nuclear fuel assembly is a well-known phenomenon. One of the vital criteria during the history of nuclear fuel development has been fuel assembly’s mechanical stability. Once present, the fuel assembly bow can lead to safety issues like excessive water gap and power redistribution or even incomplete rod insertion (IRI). The extensive bow can result in assembly handling and loading problems. This is why the fuel assembly’s bow is one of the most often controlled geometrical factors during periodic fuel inspections for VVER when compared e.g. to on-site fuel rod gap measurements or other instrumental measurements performed on-site. Our proposed screening method uses existing video records for fuel inspection. We establish video frames normalization and aggregation for the purposes of bow measurement. The whole process is done by digital image processing algorithms which analyze rotations of video frames, extract angles whose source is the fuel set torsion, and reconstruct torsion schema. This approach provides results comparable to the commonly utilized method. We tested this new approach in real operation on 19 fuel assemblies with different campaign numbers and designs, where the average deviation from other methods was less than 2 % on average. Due to the fact, that the method has not yet been validated during full scale measurements of the fuel inspection, the preliminary results stand for that we recommend this method as a complementary part of standard bow measurement procedures to increase measurement robustness, lower time consumption and preserve or increase accuracy. After completed validation it is expected that the proposed method allows standalone fuel assembly bow measurements. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-09T15:52:22Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-cd426417cacb4570a1e831be3fd694e1 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1738-5733 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-09T15:52:22Z |
| publishDate | 2023-04-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nuclear Engineering and Technology |
| spelling | doaj.art-cd426417cacb4570a1e831be3fd694e12023-04-26T05:56:29ZengElsevierNuclear Engineering and Technology1738-57332023-04-0155414851494Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video recordDušan Plašienka0Jaroslav Knotek1Marcin Kopeć2Martina Malá3Jan Blažek4Profinit, s.r.o., Tychonova 2, Prague, 16000, Czech RepublicInstitute of Information Theory and Automation of the CAS, Pod Vodárenskou věží 8, Prague, 18208, Czech Republic; Research Centre Řež, Hlavní 130, Husinec, 25068, Czech RepublicResearch Centre Řež, Hlavní 130, Husinec, 25068, Czech RepublicResearch Centre Řež, Hlavní 130, Husinec, 25068, Czech RepublicInstitute of Information Theory and Automation of the CAS, Pod Vodárenskou věží 8, Prague, 18208, Czech Republic; Research Centre Řež, Hlavní 130, Husinec, 25068, Czech Republic; Corresponding author.The bow of the nuclear fuel assembly is a well-known phenomenon. One of the vital criteria during the history of nuclear fuel development has been fuel assembly’s mechanical stability. Once present, the fuel assembly bow can lead to safety issues like excessive water gap and power redistribution or even incomplete rod insertion (IRI). The extensive bow can result in assembly handling and loading problems. This is why the fuel assembly’s bow is one of the most often controlled geometrical factors during periodic fuel inspections for VVER when compared e.g. to on-site fuel rod gap measurements or other instrumental measurements performed on-site. Our proposed screening method uses existing video records for fuel inspection. We establish video frames normalization and aggregation for the purposes of bow measurement. The whole process is done by digital image processing algorithms which analyze rotations of video frames, extract angles whose source is the fuel set torsion, and reconstruct torsion schema. This approach provides results comparable to the commonly utilized method. We tested this new approach in real operation on 19 fuel assemblies with different campaign numbers and designs, where the average deviation from other methods was less than 2 % on average. Due to the fact, that the method has not yet been validated during full scale measurements of the fuel inspection, the preliminary results stand for that we recommend this method as a complementary part of standard bow measurement procedures to increase measurement robustness, lower time consumption and preserve or increase accuracy. After completed validation it is expected that the proposed method allows standalone fuel assembly bow measurements.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S173857332200599XFuel assemblyAssembly qualityAssembly bowImage processing |
| spellingShingle | Dušan Plašienka Jaroslav Knotek Marcin Kopeć Martina Malá Jan Blažek Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record Nuclear Engineering and Technology Fuel assembly Assembly quality Assembly bow Image processing |
| title | Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record |
| title_full | Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record |
| title_fullStr | Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record |
| title_full_unstemmed | Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record |
| title_short | Measurement of nuclear fuel assembly’s bow from visual inspection’s video record |
| title_sort | measurement of nuclear fuel assembly s bow from visual inspection s video record |
| topic | Fuel assembly Assembly quality Assembly bow Image processing |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S173857332200599X |
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