METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE CHIPPING OF FUEL PELLETS IN THE ASSEMBLED FUEL CELL Russian patent published in 2023 - IPC G21C17/00 

FIELD: nuclear power industry.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to nuclear power, namely to a method for controlling the chips of fuel pellets in an assembled fuel cell. At the entrance of the detection units, slot collimators are additionally installed, one of which is equipped with a controlled screen that partially overlaps the collimator slot with a gap on the side of the small chord of the section of the fuel cell. The mechanism for controlling the movement of the fuel cell is additionally equipped with a rotation drive of the fuel cell. The fuel cell is moved. Counting pulses coming from gamma-ray detectors are processed, in particular, subtracted and summed. By the signal of the difference of the counting pulses, the possible presence of a chip in the gap zone of the fuel pellets is judged. When the difference is higher than the permissible threshold value, the fuel cell is stopped, a screen is inserted into one of the slot collimators and the fuel cell is rotated, after which, upon the appearance of an extremum of counting pulses at the output of the detector with this controlled collimator, a conclusion is made about the presence and magnitude of the chip of fuel pellets in the assembled fuel element.

EFFECT: increase in the reliability of detecting fuel pellet chips with the ability to control the presence and magnitude of fuel pellet chips in the assembled fuel cell.

1 cl, 2 dwg