TRANSMISSION TOMOGRAPHY OF NUCLEAR-FUEL PINS AND BUNDLES WITH AN ELECTRONIC LINE CAMERA SYSTEM

For the non-destructive examination of nuclear fuel experiments a line scan camera has been developed which is capable of producing shadowgrams and tomograms of fresh and irradiated fuel. The camera consists of a fan beam collimator, a phosphor screen illuminated edge-on and a standard photo-diode array. It has been tested with 400 kV X-ray, 18 MV Betatron and thermal neutron sources. Tomograms of preirradiated fuel pins show the fuel debris distribution after an over-power test. Various phantoms have been tomographed demonstrating the ability of imaging fuel bundle cross sections nondestructively. Presently the system spatial resolution is about 0.3 mm in sections of 0.3 mm thickness. Because the camera is small and the control computer of standard industry type the system is transportable and may be integrated easily in existing nondestructive examination facilities.