Special sensors "will sing" on the state of nuclear reactors

American scientists have presented original technology to assess the condition of the nuclear reactor "inside" and in real time. They developed a "singing" Thermoacoustic sensors that are placed in the reactor core. The announcement was made at the 167th meeting of the American Acoustical Society, and briefly talks about her publication Extreme Tech.
 

From the day of the accident at the Japanese nuclear power plant "Fukushima-1" has been more than three years, but we know almost nothing about what is happening inside the reactors shut down the station. Scientists have collected a lot of energy and information about the state of the soil, air and water, but in closed coffins active zones NPP penetrate only special robots - and they have not progressed very far. "At bezrybe" amiss even cosmic rays: sometimes they fly through the reactors and bring priceless nuggets of information.
With the new technology, developed by American scientists in cooperation with energy company "Westinghouse", this problem will never occur. If the temperature, pressure or radiation levels in the reactor will "skip", the new sensors will produce a sound on the corresponding resonance frequency - in other words, they will whistle his fortune.
Sensor design is very simple. Resonator (long hollow rod) fits snugly ceramic material in which at regular intervals, do a number of tiny holes (pores). At a certain drop in temperature or pressure inside rod resonance frequency varies in a predictable way - and he makes sounds at high frequency. It is very important that this sensor requires no electronics, and no external energy sources. Moreover, the authors have proposed the idea of ​​putting their devices for fuel rods reactors: the fuel elements themselves then become autonomous sensors. And then the reactor "sings" many-voiced chorus, informing attentive power engineering all about his condition.
Such information will be useful not only in an extreme situation: if the data from the "inside" of the set NPP going into massive databases, repair and modernization of reactors would pass more quickly and safely.