3D RF-ECT simulations of ISI of U-bend SG tubes in FBR

Mihalache, O. ; Yamaguchi, Toshihiko ; Ueda, Masashi ; Tsukimori, Kazuyuki

The paper focus on 3-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) of the SG inspection using RF-ECT in order to asses the ISI in the above conditions, by using a FE code developed in house. It is evaluated the influences of the SG tubes U-bend curvature on the eddy current sensor signal by taking into account the 3D model in which multiple tubes are located close to each other, as in the real situation. The 64-bit 3D-RFECT code was enhanced to run on parallel architectures using both PC machines (multiple cores) or Unix clusters. Femap 8.3 was employed for both pre and post processor analysis. 3D computational burden details and parallel performance are presented using up to 128 CPUs on 2 UNIX cluster machines and a 64 bit PC. The simulations asses the noise in the ECT signal due to the presence of sodium drops, U-bend tube curvature and the signal/noise ratio for defects in SG U-bend tube part.