TY - CONF A1 - Prabhakara, Prathik A1 - Mielentz, Frank A1 - Stolpe, Heiko A1 - Behrens, Matthias A1 - Lay, Vera A1 - Niederleithinger, Ernst T1 - Ultrasonic Investigation for the Quality Assurance of Sealing Structures in Radioactive Waste Repositories T2 - NDE 2022 N2 - The structural integrity of sealing structures in underground repositories for radioactive waste is a major concern regarding safe disposal. Non-destructive testing plays a very important role in the safety of this sealing structures. Ultrasonic pulse echo technology has been established in the construction industry as a non-destructive testing method for locating potential defects and material characterization of concrete structures. A borehole probe is an ultrasonic pulse-echo device used to investigate the internal structures of salt concrete. A prototype borehole probe is successfully demonstrated with the existing research borehole in the test site using a commercially available flaw detector. A novel phased array borehole probe that allows the beam to be focused based on the delay law was constructed and tested. The directivity measurements on the semi-cylindrical concrete sample agree well with the simulation results for the different focusing angles. In combination with geophysical reconstruction methods, the optimized radiation pattern of the probe is expected to improve the signal quality and thus increase the reliability of the imaging results. In addition, a unique large aperture ultrasound system (LAUS) is expected to provide enhanced images of possible cracks and embedded objects in in-situ structures. LAUS will be optimized to reliably detect objects at depths greater than 9 m and, at the same time, provide good resolution. Modeling studies show the potential to increase the distance between the transducer arrays further, and the same configuration has been successfully tested on a thick concrete wall. Overall, the paper shows that quality assurance using ultrasonic testing is crucial for constructing safe sealing structures to dispose of radioactive or toxic waste. T2 - NDE 2022 CY - Gandhinagar, India DA - 24.12.2022 KW - Ultrasonic Testing KW - Engineered barrier KW - Phased array technique KW - Non-destructive testing civil engineering KW - Quality assurance PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-56802 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -