TY - GEN
T1 - Radiation damage characterization in reactor pressure vessel steels with nonlinear ultrasound
AU - Matlack, K. H.
AU - Kim, J. Y.
AU - Wall, J. J.
AU - Qu, J.
AU - Jacobs, L. J.
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Nuclear generation currently accounts for roughly 20% of the US baseload power generation. Yet, many US nuclear plants are entering their first period of life extension and older plants are currently undergoing assessment of technical basis to operate beyond 60 years. This means that critical components, such as the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), will be exposed to higher levels of radiation than they were originally intended to withstand. Radiation damage in reactor pressure vessel steels causes microstructural changes such as vacancy clusters, precipitates, dislocations, and interstitial loops that leave the material in an embrittled state. The development of a nondestructive evaluation technique to characterize the effect of radiation exposure on the properties of the RPV would allow estimation of the remaining integrity of the RPV with time. Recent research has shown that nonlinear ultrasound is sensitive to radiation damage. The physical effect monitored by nonlinear ultrasonic techniques is the generation of higher harmonic frequencies in an initially monochromatic ultrasonic wave, arising from the interaction of the ultrasonic wave with microstructural features such as dislocations, precipitates, and their combinations. Current findings relating the measured acoustic nonlinearity parameter to increasing levels of neutron fluence for different representative RPV materials are presented.
AB - Nuclear generation currently accounts for roughly 20% of the US baseload power generation. Yet, many US nuclear plants are entering their first period of life extension and older plants are currently undergoing assessment of technical basis to operate beyond 60 years. This means that critical components, such as the reactor pressure vessel (RPV), will be exposed to higher levels of radiation than they were originally intended to withstand. Radiation damage in reactor pressure vessel steels causes microstructural changes such as vacancy clusters, precipitates, dislocations, and interstitial loops that leave the material in an embrittled state. The development of a nondestructive evaluation technique to characterize the effect of radiation exposure on the properties of the RPV would allow estimation of the remaining integrity of the RPV with time. Recent research has shown that nonlinear ultrasound is sensitive to radiation damage. The physical effect monitored by nonlinear ultrasonic techniques is the generation of higher harmonic frequencies in an initially monochromatic ultrasonic wave, arising from the interaction of the ultrasonic wave with microstructural features such as dislocations, precipitates, and their combinations. Current findings relating the measured acoustic nonlinearity parameter to increasing levels of neutron fluence for different representative RPV materials are presented.
KW - Nonlinear Ultrasonic Testing
KW - Radiation Damage in Steel
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U2 - 10.1063/1.4864931
DO - 10.1063/1.4864931
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84903129956
SN - 9780735412118
T3 - AIP Conference Proceedings
SP - 1007
EP - 1013
BT - 40th Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation - Incorporating the 10th International Conference on Barkhausen Noise and Micromagnetic Testing
T2 - 40th Annual Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, QNDE 2013, Incorporating the 10th International Conference on Barkhausen and Micro-Magnetics, ICBM 2013
Y2 - 21 July 2013 through 26 July 2013
ER -