The Application of Thermoacoustic Sensors to Examine Nuclear Fuel Rods: An Inter

view with Professor Steven L. Garrett

Steven L. Garrett, Professor of Acoustics and Senior Scientist at Penn State Uni
versity talks to Kal Kaur at AZoSensors about the application of thermoacoustic
sensors to examine nuclear fuel rods.
KK - Can you discuss the Inspiration behind the design and development of a ther
moacoustic sensor for monitoring nuclear fuel rods?
SLG - The decision to consider the use of a thermoacoustic engine to act as a se
lf-powered thermometer inside a nuclear reactor came about in a way that is uniq
ue in my 40 years as an academic research physicist. For the past ten years, we
have made an inexpensive ($14) thermoacoustic engine demonstration kit availabl
e on the internet. In that time, we have sold over 1,000 kits to teachers, stude
nts, and researchers on every continent. Two years ago, Dr. James A. Smith, at
Idaho National Laboratory, purchased one of those kits and after he built it he
contacted me to ask if such a device might be used to sense temperature and othe
r characteristics within nuclear reactors. That was the beginning of our on-goin
g collaboration.
KK - Can you describe the method to monitor the status of nuclear fuel rods with
out relying on an electrical power supply?
SLG - It is possible to create a thermoacoustic engine within an acoustic resona
tor that is the same shape and made of the same material as a nuclear fuel rod i
f you can place a porous medium we call the stack within the fuel rod. The heat fr
om the nuclear fuel will create the required temperature gradient across the sta
ck supporting a high-amplitude, self-maintained acoustic oscillation. The freque
ncy of that oscillation is related to the temperature inside the fuel rod. The s
ound propagates beyond the fuel-rod resonator into the surrounding heat transpor
t fluid where it can be detected (we use an ordinary hydrophone) and the frequen
cy of the radiated sound can be used to determine the temperature of the fuel ro
d or the surrounding heat transfer fluid.
KK - How does the thermoacoustic sensor work?
SLG - A standing-wave thermoacoustic engine is a natural engine in the sense that
you do not have to provide any mechanical contrivances to properly phase the tra
nsport of heat during the thermodynamic cycle that converts the heat flow into m
echanical work. In our case, that work appears as high-amplitude sound waves. In
a typical engine, like the one in your car, there are cams, push-rods, rocker-a
rms, valves, a fly-wheel, a timing belt, etc., that are required to force the co
mpressions and expansions, ignition and exhaust, all to occur at the correct pha
se of the cycle.
The standing sound wave corresponds to a sloshing of the gas which is accompanied
by compressions that heat the gas and rarefactions that cool the gas. During hal
f of the acoustic cycle, gas sloshes in one direction where it is compressed and
heated adiabatically, but the temperature of the stack is higher than the heate
d gas, so the gas warms further, thereby increasing its pressure. As it sloshes
in the other direction, it cools itself (again, adiabatically) but at the end of
its motion the gas finds itself over a portion of the stack that is even cooler
. Some heat leaves the gas, going to the stack, and therefore the pressure is f
urther reduced.
This effect was observed by J. W. Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) in the late-1800 s, altho
ugh in a slightly different context. Although a good quantitative description o
f thermoacoustics effects was not available until the 1970 s through the work of N
. Rott, Rayleigh s qualitative explanation appeared in his book, The Theory of Sou

nd, Vol. II: If heat be given to the air at the moment of greatest condensation,
or be taken away from it at the moment of greatest rarefaction, the vibration is
encouraged. In our standing-wave thermoacoustic engine, both the giving and taking a
re operative during each cycle.
Schematic of a thermoacoustic sensor
Heat is applied to the Hot Heat Exchanger end and creates a temperature gradient
across the stack. The Cold Heat Exchanger maintains the temperature of the rest
of engine at ambient or another desired value.
As the gas moves to the left (step ?), heat is transferred from the hot end of t
he stack to the gas during step ?, increasing the gas temperature and pressure.
The pressure increase pushes the gas back by a little more each cycle.
When the gas moves to the right (step ?), heat is transferred from the gas to th
e stack (step ?), lowering the gas temperature and pressure. This sucks the gas
back toward the hot end of the stack by a little more each cycle.
Eventually, the amplitude of the sound wave grows to a steady-state level where
the acoustic power dissipated during each cycle is equal to the acoustic power g
enerated by the thermoacoustic process. The result is that an acoustic pressure
wave is sustained within the engine.
This process of conversion of heat to sound was understood by Lord Rayleigh near
the end of the 19th century when he stated that a vibration is encouraged when h
eat is added during compression and removed during rarefaction.
This is analogous to what occurs in an optical laser. A flash-lamp puts the atom
s in the lasing medium into a non-equilibrium distribution
in a thermodynamic sy
stem, non-equilibrium corresponds to the presence of a temperature gradient that
exists across our stack . In a laser there is an electromagnetic standing wave in
a cavity terminated at one end by a mirror and at the other with a partially-ref
lecting mirror. That standing wave controls the phasing of the atomic transition
s from an excited state back to their ground state. The thermoacoustic processes
and the analogy to lasers is covered in greater detail in S. Garrett and S. Bac
khaus, The Power of Sound , American Scientist 88(6), 516-525 (2000).
KK - What challenges were the research team faced with during the design process
on this sensor technology?
SLG - Most of the technical challenges in converting a simple lecture demonstrat
ion device to a sensor that was compatible with the form-factor of a nuclear fue
l rod were related to the fairly small size of the fuel-rod. This required that
we use higher frequencies and smaller stacks with smaller pore sizes.
Since such fuel rods are typically surrounded by a heat transfer liquid (we used
distilled water), we had to protect our auxiliary sensors (e.g., thermocouples,
pressure sensors) and their leads from being damaged by the water when submerge
d. Of course, our hydrophone was perfectly happy since it was designed for opera
tion in water.
KK - What is the thermoacoustic sensor made of and how does this benefit the fun
ctional principle to this sensor type?
SLG - The only difference between an ordinary
ustic fuel-rod sensor is that the sensor must
oacoustic fuel-rod resonators were fabricated
the same materials used for ordinary nuclear

nuclear fuel rod and the thermoaco

contain a stack material. Our therm
at Idaho National Laboratory using
fuel rods.

The stack material we use is an extruded cordierite ceramic, called Celcor, produ

ced commercially by Corning s Environmental Products Division. It is used worldwi

de as a catalytic converter substrate in automobile exhaust systems. As such, it
is inexpensive (before the catalyst is coated on the surface) and is designed t
o work under harsh conditions at the high temperatures characteristic of the exh
aust from internal combustion engines.
Unlike piezoelectric ceramics, the Celcor is not electrically polarized so it is
tolerant of both high temperatures and the high fluxes of energetic and ionizing
particles that permeate nuclear reactors.
KK - How will this technology work in an evolving world where efforts to reduce
pollution and the carbon footprint is heavily stressed?
SLG - Thermoacoustic sensing could provide a fail-safe means of monitoring react
or condition even if electrical power is interrupted. Of course, nuclear power i
s non-polluting (in the conventional sense) and has no carbon footprint associated
with the production of electrical power.
KK - How do you plan on developing the thermoacoustic sensor technology in terms
of function and application?
SLG - Our next step is to power the sensor with nuclear fuel. To this point, all
experiments have simulated the heating of the stack by the nuclear fuel with co
nventional electrical heating elements. We also look forward to using the thermo
acoustic sensors to detect changes in fuel properties and to detect the evolutio
n of gases associated with radioactive decay, particularly krypton and xenon. We
have also discovered that the acoustically-driven streaming of the gas within t
he resonator enhances the heat transfer between the fuel rod and the surrounding
coolant. This heat transfer enhancement can be significant, although it require
s no additional structures, external energy source or pumps.
KK - Can you discuss some emergency situations where this technology is likely t
o be applied?
SLG - In any emergency situation where a nuclear power plant, or nuclear fuel st
ored in a spent fuel pool, loses electrical power, a self-powered, acousticallytelemetered thermoacoustic sensor can provide critical status information (e.g.,
fuel and coolant temperature) that might not be otherwise available.
KK - How do you plan on developing this technology for wider application?
SLG - We have filed a provisional patent covering both thermoacoustic sensing an
d thermoacoustically enhanced heat transfer and are seeking a commercial collabo
rator within the nuclear industry. During that process, we are planning further
tests at Idaho National Laboratory that will allow us to produce a nuclear-power
thermoacoustic fuel rod sensor and monitor its operation acoustically in their
Advanced Test Reactor.
About Professor Steven L. Garrett
Steven Garrett received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California,
Los Angeles in 1977. He continued research in quantum fluids at the University o
f Sussex in England, followed by two years in the Physics Department at the Univ
ersity of California at Berkeley as a Fellow of the Miller Institute for Basic R
esearch in Science. Dr. Garrett joined the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate Sch
ool (NPS) in 1982 where his research efforts were concentrated on the developmen
t of fiber-optic sensors and thermoacoustic refrigerators. He left NPS in 1995 t
o assume his current position as a Professor of Acoustics in the Graduate Progra
m in Acoustics, and as Senior Scientist in the Applied Research Laboratory, both
at Penn State.

In 2001, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the Danish Technical University and in 200
8 began working for the US State Department where he is a Senior Science Advisor
for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Professor Garrett is a fellow
of the Acoustical Society of America and recipient of the Popular Science Magaz
ine Award for Environmental Technology, the Helen Caldecott Award for Environmen
tal Technology, and the Rolex Award for Enterprise (environment category). He h
as been issued over two dozen patents.