PAUT inspection of copper canister: Structural attenuation and POD formulation

For inspection of thick-walled (50mm) copper canisters for final disposal of spent nuclear fuel in Sweden, ultrasonic inspection using phased array technique (PAUT) is applied. Because thick-walled copper is not commonly used as a structural material, previous experience on Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing for this type of application is limited. The paper presents the progress in understanding the amplitudes and attenuation changes acting on the Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing inspection of copper canisters. Previous studies showed the existence of a low pass filtering effect and a heterogeneous grain size distribution along the depth, thus affecting both the detectability of defects and their “Probability of Detection” determination. Consequently, the difference between the first and second back wall echoes were not sufficient to determine the local attenuation (within the inspection range), which affects the signal response for each individual defect. Experimental evaluation of structural attenuation was carried out onto step-wedge samples cut from full-size, extruded and pierced & drawn, copper canisters. Effective attenuation values has been implemented in numerical simulations to achieve a Multi Parameter Probability of Detection and to formulate a Model Assisted Probability of Detection through a Monte-Carlo extraction model.