FIND project

Characteristics

• Completion dates: 2024-2028
• Budget: €5.8 million, of which €5 million is funded by the European Commission
• Project coordinated by: IRSN
• Partners: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Slovakia, Ukraine

FIND’s first pillar is to adapt innovative monitoring technologies deployed in other industries to prevent the failure of metallic pipes due to ageing. FIND will work on Structural Health Monitoring methods to detect defects in real time during plant operation, even in inaccessible locations. In addition, Digital Twins will be developed to better predict degradation phenomena, combining detailed mechanical models and real plant data.  

The second pillar of FIND concerns the development of accidental instrumentation, to support decision making in such situations. Systems to track water movements during a loss-of-coolant accident will be designed, enabling notably the localisation of the breach. FIND will also evaluate the feasibility to monitor the progression of the core degradation during severe accidents, thanks to analysis of fission products in containment, either by physical or chemical analysis.

Technologies developed in FIND are low intrusive. In addition to their benefits for safety, they will help to anticipate maintenance and to reduce operator dosimetry, which is hoped to foster their adoption.

Programme overview and areas of research

The project will start on 1st October 2024 for a duration of 4 years. It will be coordinated by IRSN with the support of LGI Sustainable Innovation, who will act as a project management officer and lead the work package dedicated to dissemination, communication and the preparation of exploitation. The four technical work packages are described below.

Work package 2: Specifying the requirements for monitoring technologies to improve safety

This work package will issue the specifications for the instrumentation developed in the frame of FIND, including the detection performance and the resistance to environmental conditions (heat, humidity, vibration, radiation...). It will focus on specific key systems and damage mechanisms, for which the added value of the approach is maximal:  

• Crevice corrosion, large deformation and leakage on partially buried raw service water pipes,
• Fatigue on the pressurizer expansion line,
• Stress corrosion cracking on the safety injection line,
• Flow-accelerated corrosion on the high-pressure turbine extraction line,
• Localisation of a breach during a loss-of-coolant accident,
• Water level measurement in the sumps during a severe accident,
• Monitoring of the core degradation during a severe accident.

Towards the end of the project, a roadmap will be issued to list new use-cases and new sensing technologies that could be addressed in the future, generalising the concepts developed in the project.

Work package 3: Innovative technologies development

This work package is dedicated to the development of the embedded acquisition chains, including the sensors, advanced signal treatment and hardening. It is divided into five tasks dedicated to different measurement methods:

• Active (KTU) and passive (CEA) ultrasonic guided waves, with piezoelectric transducers and Fibre Bragg Grating sensors on optical fibres,
• Acoustic monitoring (Framatome GmbH and SSTC NRS),
• Hardened humidity and water level sensors, including heated thermocouples (Vuez),
• Analysis of fission products in the containment during a severe accident (IRSN),
• Digital twins combining fluid and solid mechanical models with strain, vibration and temperature measurements (IPP Center and Framatome GmbH).

Work package 4: Testing in experimental and industrial conditions

A specificity of the technologies developed in FIND is linked to the fact that they must be tested in conditions close to an operating nuclear reactor. Therefore, thermal-hydraulic loops will be adapted or constructed for the needs of the project, including the Viktoria facility jointly designed by IRSN and Vuez. In addition, robustness tests will be carried out in IRSN’s irradiator IRMA.

Laboratory tests will be completed by industrial tests. Sensors monitoring raw service water pipes will be evaluated at the Gravelines nuclear power plant (France). Systems will also be installed on the high-pressure turbine extraction line of a Tihange reactor (Belgium). Other technologies will be tested in representative water, oil or gas supply networks (Ukraine).

Work package 5: Evaluating the acceptability of technologies

The last work package will evaluate the remaining challenges for the deployment of the technologies. It includes compliance, qualification, and human and organisational factors. 

Partners

• IRSN (France)
• Framatome GmbH (Germany)
• SSTC NRS (Ukraine)
• VTT (Finland)
• IPP Center (Ukraine)
• CEA (France)
• EDF (France)
• LGI sustainable innovation (France), project management officer
• Kaunas University of Technology, KTU (Lithuania)
• Vuez (Slovakia)
• Tractebel (Belgium)