Finite Element Modeling of Conventional and Pulsed Eddy Current Probes for CANDU® Fuel Channel Inspection

M. Luloff[1], J. Morelli[1], T. W. Krause[2]
[1]Department of Physics, Engineering Physics & Astronomy, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada
[2]Department of Physics, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, ON, Canada
Published in 2014

A pulsed Eddy Current (EC) probe, using the transient response to a stepped voltage is being developed for in-reactor inspection of CANDU® fuel channels. Pulsed EC has the advantage of generating a spectrum of discrete frequencies, allowing the simultaneous collection of data from a range of depths (i.e. takes advantage of multiple skin depths) that is unachievable by conventional EC, which uses limited number of time harmonic excitations. A COMSOL Multiphysics® model was created to characterize the effectiveness of a conventional EC probe and these results were compared against analytic solutions with a simplified geometry.