Simulations of Propagation and Radiation of A0-mode Lamb Wave in Ultrasonic Waveguide Sensor

As the sodium coolant of a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is opaque to light, a conventional visual inspection cannot be used for carrying out an in-service inspection of the internal structures under a sodium level. An ultrasonic wave should be applied for an under-sodium viewing of the internal structures in a reactor vessel. Recently, a new plate type ultrasonic waveguide sensor has been developed for the versatile applications in the under-sodium viewing application. In the plate type ultrasonic waveguide sensor, the A0 mode Lamb wave is utilized for the long distance propagation and the effective radiation capability in a fluid. And a radiation beam steering technique is presented which is capable of steering an ultrasonic radiation beam of a waveguide sensor without a mechanical movement of the sensor module. In this paper, the numerical simulation of the propagation and radiation of A0-mode Lamb wave in ultrasonic leaky wave generation from waveguide sensor is performed by using the finite element method (FEM). The objective of this research is to compare the previous theoretical and experimental results with its numerical simulation