Preliminary online monitoring in cooling pipe of RSG-GAS reactor using fluids flow acoustic emission

The RSG-GAS reactor is one of the research reactors owned by the Research Organization for Nuclear Energy, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), with a nominal power of 30 MW, which has been operating since 1987. The reactor components will naturally experience degradation due to age and other factors, such as radiation, impurities, and corrosion. The RSG-GAS reactor dissipates heat generated by fission through primary and secondary cooling pipes. The primary cooling pipe, which is made of carbon steel, transfers heat from the reactor core to the heat exchanger. In this research, the capability of Acoustic Emission to monitor the primary cooling pipe will be investigated. The acoustic emission will be simulated using computational fluid dynamics to account for the flow influence in the primary cooling pipe that connects the reactor tank to the heat exchanger. The result shows that the optimal location to place AE sensors is near the main pump, and the higher the flow rate, the higher the acoustic power. Additionally, a Loss of Flow Accident model has been developed and can be used as a new approach to determine the acoustic power burst.