Applicability of eddy current inversion techniques to the sizing of defects in Inconel welds of BWR internals

This paper evaluates the applicability of eddy current inversion techniques to the sizing of defects in Inconel welds with rough surfaces. For this purpose, a plate Inconel weld specimen, which models the welding of a stub tube in a boiling water nuclear reactor, is fabricated, and artificial notches machined into the specimen. Eddy current inspections using six probes in weld inspection evaluated. It is revealed that if suitable probes are applied, an Inconel weld does not provide large noise signals in eddy current inspections even though the surface of the weld is rough. Finally, reconstruction of the notches are performed using eddy current signals measured with the use of the uniform eddy current probe that showed the best results among the six probes in the inspection. A simplified configuration is proposed in order to consider the complicated configuration of the welded specimen in numerical simulations. While reconstructed profiles of the notches are slightly larger than the true profiles, quite good agreements are obtained in spite of the simple approximation of the configuration, which reveals that eddy current testing would be an efficient non-destructive testing method for the sizing of defects in Inconel welds. (author)