Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Existing fuel channel inspection techniques in CANDU reactors are extremely time consuming. First, they require the reactor to be off-line. Second, they only enable one fuel channel to be inspected at a time. This project proposes to address these shortcomings by developing two new inspection tools. The first tool will be a self contained system that can be inserted into a CANDU fuel channel as part of a fuel bundle string, while the reactor is on-line, and perform the necessary inspections of the fuel channel. This system must be able to provide required Non-Destructive Examination (NDE) tests in the extremely demanding high temperature, high radiation flux core environment, and therefore must be radiation hardened and total dose fault tolerant. The second tool will be a fire-and-forget, self-propelled inspection tool that can be inserted into a fuel channel of a reactor that is off-line. Multiple copies of this tool will be capable of being inserted into multiple fuel channels and will perform inspections in parallel, despite being inserted sequentially by a delivery machine such as CIGAR (Channel Inspection and Gauging Apparatus for Reactors) or UDM (Universal Delivery Machine). CANDU reactors are currently used in three provinces in Canada. The maintenance and safety of these reactors is vital to the economic well being of the nation. Improved inspection tools, like those proposed in this project, will help CANDU operators better inspect their reactors while lowering operating costs, thus ensuring a reliable supply of carbon-free energy to power the nation.