Non Destructive Evaluation of containment nuclear plants structures

V. Garnier (1) , Jérôme Verdier (2) , Zoubir Mehdi Sbartaï , Odile Abraham (3) , Bogdan Piwakowski (4, 5) , E. Larose , Jean-Marie Henault , H. Hafid , Jean François Chaix (1) , C. Payan (1) , H. Sqalli

1 O&I - Ondes et Imagerie
2 UT - Université de Toulouse
3 IFSTTAR/GERS/GeoEND - Laboratoire Géophysique et évaluation non destructive
4 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
5 TPIA - IEMN - Transduction, Propagation et Imagerie Acoustique - IEMN

French Projects of Investment for the Future, called “Research for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection” have been initiated to further research on the causes, the management, the impact of the observed nuclear accidents and to propose and validate solutions to limit the risk and the consequences. In this context the "Non Destructive Evaluation of nuclear plants containment” project” (ENDE) with eight partners (six research institutes and two industrials) supported by the “National Agency of Research”, proposes a methodology for the Non Destructive Evaluation of the containment capacity to fulfil its two major functions: strength and leak tightness. The NDE measurements will be performed under conditions representing the specific solicitations of a decennial inspection, and after or during a reference accident. The project aims to develop NDEs, to combine them by data fusion and to select the most efficient combinations with quantitative criteria. The work is based on: • Structuring the knowledge and developing an experimental plan. • Evaluating the material in representative conditions of accidental solicitations (water saturation, porosity, strength, elastic modulus, stress) and the diffuse thermal damage (micro cracks) • Monitoring the transition from diffuse to continuous damage (cracks) and monitoring a crack under stress (opening and width). • Implementing ND Techniques on-site. The ND techniques retained after selection will be implemented on a containment mock-up on the 1/3 scale. This mock-up developed by EDF (Electricité de France) will be available in 2016. It will be comparable to those of real size containment regarding pressure and temperature conditions. The measures deduced from the NDEs will be introduced in another project (Macena) that aims to simulate the water and heat transfers as well as creep occurring in a reference accident. We will present the methodology and the results obtained during the first year and a half

Domaines: Acoustique [physics.class-ph]

V. Garnier, Jérôme Verdier, Zoubir Mehdi Sbartaï, Odile Abraham, Bogdan Piwakowski, et al.. Non Destructive Evaluation of containment nuclear plants structures. 20th International Symposium on Nonlinear Acoustics, Jun 2015, Berlin, Germany. ⟨hal-01303775⟩