Instrumentation for Reactor Two Phase Noise Diagnosis

The aim of this work is directed towards developing two particular applications of two phase noise diagnosis in nuclear power plants, cavitation damage prediction in circulating pumps, particularly for sodium cooled fast breeder reactor concepts and the detection of incipient boiling and cavitation in pressurized water or sodium cooled reactors. For the above purpose a high frequency pressure-bar probe and a digital acquisition and processing system has been designed to find the amplitude and statistical characterics of pressure pulses from cavitation in a venturi which simulates conditions in hydraulic machinery and high speed flow channels. Significant results have been obtained about two phase inception phenomenon for the development of instrument systems for the above two applications.