Inspection of the Nuclear Fuel Rod Deformation using an Image Processing
Jai-Wan Cho, Youngsoo Choi · Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea · 2010
In this paper, a deformation measurement technology of the nuclear fuel rod is proposed. The deformation measurement system include high definition CCD or CMOS image sensor, lens, semiconductor laser line beam marker, and optical & mechanical accessories. The basic idea of the deformation measurement is to illuminate the outer surface of the fuel rod with collimated laser line beam at an angle of 45 degrees or higher. The relative motion of the fuel rod in the horizontal direction causes the illuminated laser line beam to move vertically along the surface of the fuel rod. The resulting change of laser line beam position in the surface of the fuel rod is imaged as the parabolic beam in the high definition CCD or CMOS image sensor. From the parabolic beam pattern, the ellipse model is extracted. And the slope of the long and the short axis of the ellipse model is found. The crossing point between the saddle point of the parabolic beam and the long & short axis of the ellipse model is taken as the feature of the deformed fuel rod. The vertical offset between feature points before and after fuel rod deformation is calculated. From the experimental results, inspection resolution is acquired using the proposed method, which is three times enhanced than the conventional criterion () of the guide for the inspection of the nuclear fuel rod.