Advanced diagnostics of nuclear fuel

The full title of this project is Advanced diagnostics of nuclear fuel based on tomographic techniques and high-resolution gamma-ray spectroscopy. This involves measurement of fuel properties such as distribution of pin power, pin burnup and fission gas release for assessment of fuel performance.

Just like in the UGET project gamma tomography is used to create images of the distribution of materials inside nuclear fuel assemblies. This technique makes use of different projections of the gamma emission from assemblies containing radioactive materials, as showed schematically in the image below.

The information from different projections of the gamma radiation is used as input in a reconstruction algorithm, calculating the source distribution that gives rise to the measured intensities.

Selected publications

S. Holcombe, “Nondestructive Fission Gas Measurements by Means of Gamma Spectroscopy and Gamma Tomography”, Licentiate thesis, Uppsala University, November 2012.

S. Holcombe, S.J. Svärd, K. Eitrheim, L. Hallstadius, C. Willman, “Feasibility of identifying leaking fuel rods using gamma tomography”, Annals of Nuclear Energy, Vol. 57, pp. 334-340, July 2013. doi: 10.1016/j.anucene.2013.02.020.

S. Holcombe, S.J. Svärd, K. Eitrheim, L. Hallstadius, C. Willman, “Method for Analyzing Fission Gas Release in Fuel Rods Based on Gamma-Ray Measurements of Short-Lived Fission Products”, Nuclear Technology , 184 (1), pp. 96-106, October 2013.