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Degradation of material properties significant for lifetime extension of nuclear power plants
(2010)
The discussion about the right energy sources or alternative energy generation goes around the world, mostly in connection with green-house gas reduction. Therefore, some countries have started to consider extending operation of nuclear power plants. This demands an extensive plant life management as well as the knowledge of the degradation in material properties. The Basis Safety Concept (BSC) in Germany observed this circumstance. Still, lifetime extension is not an issue in Germany due to phase out of nuclear energy. Part of the BSC is the application of non-destructive examination (NDE) methods from the beginning, i.e. from component manufacture, to the end of life. The application of a NDE method to detect and size defects in components in nuclear power plants is presented. Some material properties and their degradation during increase of operation time are also in the focus of this paper.
Polypropylene based ferroelectret films exhibit a strong electromechanical activity and provide a promising solution for the air coupled ultrasonic (ACUS) transducers. Ultrasonic transmission between two air coupled ferroelectret transducers in dependence on the amplitude and polarity of the high voltage exciting pulse revealed a strongly non-linear electromechanical response of the ferroelectret transmitter which provides an increase in the transmitter efficiency. The authors present a simple model describing both promotion and competition of the piezoelectric and electrostriction contributions, as well as increase in the transducer constant under high voltage excitation. Enlargement of the inverse transducer constant of the polypropylene ferroelectret film by a factor of 4 was demonstrated. The non-linear properties of the polypropylene ferroelectrets result in a strong increase in their ACUS figure of merit under the high voltage excitation, which exceeds the results of their technological optimisation. Consequently, enhancement of the ACUS system transmission by 12 dB and signal to noise ratio by 32 dB was achieved.
The comparison of probes for the inspection of cladding shows a remarkable fact: depending on the reflectors used, a different performance characterization of the probe must be expected. It seems important for performance demonstration trials - especially those including the underclad area - to use reflector types as close as possible to the real cracks to be detected. For different detection approaches, reflectors representing underclad cracks should have a reduced diffraction at the crack tip areas in order to check their potential to detect the indication based on surface reflections of the ultrasonic waves.