Innovative Camera Can See Radiation Emitted by Nuclear Reactors
Engineering360 News Desk | November 02, 2015Engineers have drawn inspiration from cats to create a camera that can see radiation coming from nuclear reactors.
The research led by Lancaster University with Createc Ltd. and published in Nature Communications suggests that imaging technology developed by the university can see high-intensity “fast-neutron” and “gamma-ray” fields simultaneously.
This means that the state of nuclear reactors could be monitored in near real time, giving information on the state of the nuclear core that is independent of installed instrumentation. It also potentially offers data on the efficiency of the fuel burn-up, providing safety and commercial information to operators. The technology also has potential to monitor small medical isotope reactors.
The university reports that the imaging technology is designed to be used outside of the reactor, weighs around 20 kg and can fit inside a suitcase. The features may give the device a longer lifespan than existing monitoring technologies, which have to be based within the core of the reactor and are subject to harsh conditions.
Malcolm Joyce, professor of Nuclear Engineering at Lancaster University and co-author of the research, says, “It’s surprisingly difficult to obtain a radiation-based image of an operating reactor from outside of the core because there is understandably a lot of shielding and the space in which to install the instrumentation can be very limited.” He credits Jonathan Beaumont, the leading researcher on the project, for combining a portable imaging system developed by Createc with real-time radiation processing to enable photography of the radiation emitted by the reactor.
The technology works by using the principle of back projection with a detector situated behind a slit-shaped collimator, similar to the slit pupils of cats. This exploits the property of radiation to travel in straight lines before it interacts with the environment. The rate of detections and “view” of the detector from different positions and angles enables the source of the radiation to be determined.
The researchers say that the use of cat-like slits also enables the technology to be used in high-intensity radiation activity levels as the design prevents the detector from becoming saturated by limiting the view of the sensor to only part of the environment. This design has not been used previously to detect fast neutrons emitted by nuclear reactors, they say, and enables an assessment using a single standard detector.
The imaging technology was proven using a TRIGA mark II research reactor. Other partners involved in the research, which was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), include the Atominstitut at the Vienna University of Technology and Hybrid Instruments Ltd.