Experimental evaluation of fuel rod pattern analysis in fuel assembly using Yonsei single-photon emission computed tomography (YSECT)

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and technology 2022, Vol.54 (6), p.1982-1990
• Main Authors: Choi, Hyung-joo, Cheon, Bo-Wi, Baek, Min Kyu, Chung, Heejun, Chung, Yong Hyun, You, Sei Hwan, Min, Chul Hee, Choi, Hyun Joon
• Format: Article
• Language: Korean
• ISSN: 1738-5733; 2234-358X

The purpose of this study was to verify the possibility of fuel rod pattern analysis in a fresh fuel assembly using the Yonsei single-photon emission computed tomography (YSECT) system. The YSECT system consisted of three main parts: four trapezoidal-shaped bismuth germanate scintillator-based 64-channel detectors, a semiconductor-based multi-channel data acquisition system, and a rotary stage. In order to assess the performance of the prototype YSECT, tomographic images were obtained for three representative fuel rod patterns in the 6 × 6 array using two representative image-reconstruction algorithms. The fuel-rod patterns were then assessed using an in-house fuel rod pattern analysis algorithm. In the experimental results, the single-directional projection images for those three fuel-rod patterns well discriminated each fuel-rod location, showing a Gaussian-peak-shaped projection for a single 10 mm-diameter fuel rod with 12.1 mm full-width at half maximum. Finally, we successfully verified the possibility of the fuel rod pattern analysis for all three patterns of fresh fuel rods with the tomographic images obtained by the rotational YSECT system.