Profiling a reactor component using ultrasonics

The use of ultrasonic pulse echo ranging for profiling an inaccessible component in the complex and hostile structure of a nuclear reactor is described. The authors outline the ultrasonic method successfully employed in profiling a deformed guide tube of a reactor. The uniqueness of the method is the use of air transducers at 40 kHz, overcoming the inherent divergence problems and the difficulties associated with high temperatures inherent in a sodium cooled reactor