b'Nuclear Energy University Project (NEUP) AwardLinear and Nonlinear Guided Ultrasonic Waves to Characterize Cladding of Accident Tolerant FuelPrincipal Investigator: Laurence J. Jacobs, Georgia Institute of TechnologyTeam Members/Collaborators: Jin-Yeon Kim (Georgia Tech), Jianmin Qu (Stevens Institute of Technology), Remi Dingreville (Sandia National Laboratory), Matthieu Aumand (Framatome), Maximillian Schmitz (Georgia Tech), Charles (Nate) Tenorio (Georgia Tech), Junzhen Wang (Stevens Institute of Technology)to characterize cladding-substrate bond quality 3) Materials modeling to enable reverse-engineering of cladding-substrate bond proper-ties from the measured nonlinear ultrasonic wave results, and 4) Develop methodologies to quantify uncertainties in the proposed NDE-based approaches for quality control and quality assurance (QC/QA). The major deliverable will be the development of a combined linear and nonlinear guided wave ultrasonic approach, this project will address all three needs: (1) verify the thick-Figure 1. Photo of experimentalW hile nondestructive eval- ness and uniformity of the coating uation (NDE) techniqueslayers, (2) identify areas of missing instrumentation are currently availablecoating layers, and (3) confirm for uncoated, zirconium-basedcoating-substrate bond quality. Taken alloys, the use of coated accidenttogether, by addressing these three tolerant fuel (ATF) fuels adds a newneeds, our project will accelerate set of challenges for the character- the qualification and licensing.ization of ATF. The associated NDEAccomplishments:needs are: 1) verify the thicknessThe goals of this research are to: 1) and uniformity of the coating layers,develop a combination of linear and 2) identify areas of missing coatingnonlinear guided ultrasonic waves layers, and 3) confirm the quality oftechniques applicable for ATF, 2) the coating-substrate bond. integrate these ultrasonic wave Project Description: techniques with newly established The proposed research project hasmaterial behavior models to develop four specific tasks: 1) Develop guideda reliable NDE approach for ATF, and linear ultrasound techniques to3) develop QC/QA procedure for the verify the thickness and uniformitycladding thickness, uniformity and of cladding layers, 2) Develop guidedbond strength. For Objective 1, used a nonlinear ultrasound techniquesmachine and deep learning approach to nondestructively characterize the 156 2023|AFC ACCOMPLISHMENTS'