• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.18-24
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• 2020

When a damage occurs in the nuclear fuel burning in the reactor, fission products that should be in the nuclear fuel rod are released into the reactor coolant. In this case, sipping test, a series of non-destructive inspection methods, are used to find leakage in nuclear fuel assemblies during the power plant overhaul period. In addition, the sipping test is also used to check the integrity of the spent fuel for moving to an intermediate dry storage, which is carried out as the first step of nuclear decommissioning, . In this paper, the principle and characteristics of the sipping test are described. The structure of the sipping inspection equipment is largely divided into a suction device that collects fissile material emitted from a damaged assembly and an analysis device that analyzes their nuclides. In order to make good use of the sipping technology, the radioactive level behavior of the primary system coolant and major damage mechanisms in the event of nuclear fuel damage are also introduced. This will be a reference for selecting an appropriate sipping method when dismantling a nuclear power plant in the future.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.6
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• pp.875-882
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• 2014

In terms of safety and the efficient management of spent fuel storage, detecting failed fuel is one of the most important tasks in a CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor operation. It has been successfully demonstrated that in a CANDU reactor, on-power failed fuel detection and location systems, along with alarm area gamma monitors, can detect and locate defective and suspect fuel bundles before discharging them from the reactor to the spent fuel storage bay. In the reception bay, however, only visual inspection has been used to identify suspect bundles. Gaseous fission product and delayed neutron monitoring systems cannot precisely distinguish failed fuel elements from each fuel bundle. This study reports the use of a sipping system in a CANDU reactor for the integrity assessment of spent fuel bundles. The integrity assessment of spent fuel bundles using this sipping system has shown promise as a nondestructive test for detecting a defective fuel bundle in a CANDU reactor.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.31-39
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• 2013

Nuclear fuel can be damaged under unexpected circumstances in a nuclear reactor. Fuel rod failure can be occurred due to debris fretting or excessive hydriding or PCI (Pellet-to-clad Interaction) etc. It is important to identify the causes of such failed fuel rods for the safe operation of nuclear power plants. If a fuel rod failure occurs during the operation of a nuclear power plant, the coolant water is contaminated by leaked fission products, and in some case the power level of the plant may be lowered or the operation stopped. In addition, all spent fuels must be transferred to a dry storage. But failed fuel can not be transferred to a dry storage. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a system which is capable of inspecting whether the spent fuel in the storage pool is failed or not. The sipping technology is to analyze the leakage of fission products in state of gas and liquid. The failed fuel inspection system with gamma analyzer has successfully demonstrated that the system is enough to find the failed fuel at Wolsong plant.