RADIATION MONITORING DEVICES, INC. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 32e

Description

Keeping the aging nuclear power plants in operation is crucial to the energy requirements of the United States. Monitoring and maintaining the strength and durability of concrete structures in nuclear power plants are essential to safety. RMD is developing solid-state eddy current sensors with superior sensitivity, signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution to perform non-destructive evaluation NDE) of concrete structures. This will allow plant operators to improve the long-term operation and performance of nuclear power plants and ensure safety and reliability. The sensors developed offer superior performance to the state of the art and will have general utility in the NDE market. Research at RMD has shown that its new solid-state AMR sensors and hybrid AMR sensors for eddy current test ECT) and NDE outperform current commercial NDE technologies. RMD will work with its industrial partners will capitalize on the unique ability to detect deeply buried, microscopic defects and develop this technology into a commercial product. Using both theoretical modeling and experimentation, RMD will develop new sensors, ECT probes, electronics and software that have the capability to provide superior, high reliability NDE. The probes will be compatible with existing NDE instruments. Phase I will demonstrate that the new sensors can detect detects in reinforced concrete and they offer several significant advantages including higher sensitivity, better spatial resolution, and the potential for less complex and more cost-effective sensors for ECT and NDE. The solid-state ECT probes will be more sensitive, have higher signal-to-noise ratio, scan faster, and provide more reliable detection of smaller defects than existing technologies. The proposed sensor arrays will be compatible with existing ECT equipment ensuring rapid acceptance in the marketplace. The markets we will target are power generation, aircraft inspection, highway infrastructure and transportation, oil drilling, and natural gas pipelines.