A Practical Approach to Mass Estimation of Loose Parts

This paper is concerned with estimating the mass of a loose part in the steam generator of a nuclear power plant. Although there is the basic principle known as “Hertz Theory”for estimating mass and energy of a spherical part impacted on an infinite flat plate, the theory is not directly applicable because real plants do not comply with the underlying ideal assumptions. (Say, the steam generator is of a cylindrical and hemisphere shape.) In this work, a practical method is developed based on the basic theory and considering amplitude and energy attenuation effects. Actually, the impact waves propagating along the plate to the sensor locations become significantly different in shape and frequency spectrum from the original waveform due to the plate and surrounding conditions, distance attenuation and damping loss. To show the validity of the present mass estimation algorithm, it has been applied to the mock-up impact test data and also to real plant data. The results show better performance comparing to the conventional Hertz schemes.