Development of once-through type densitometer

Onozawa, Atsushi ; Kushida, Teruo; Kanazawa, Hiroyuki

The swelling observed on irradiated fuels is caused by the accumulation of fission products and irradiation defects. The swelling ratio is changed along with radius region in the pellet due to burn up difference caused by that of neutron flux. To investigate the swelling behavior at the small area of the pellet, it is needed to measure the density of fuel fragments picked from an irradiated pellet. In this circumstance, once-through type densitometer was developed to measure the density of the small irradiated specimen precisely and to handle the samples easily with remote control systems. Several kinds of metallic and ceramic standard specimens are prepared to investigate the dependence of the sample weight, density and porosity on the accuracy. The results of characteristic examination using these specimens indicate that this densitometer has enough accuracy. In addition, some parts of this apparatus are controlled by motor drive units, which made it possible to measure the density full-automatically.