Fast Photothermal Inspection of Plasma-Sprayed Coatings of Primary Circulation Seal Rings of a Nuclear Reactor

A need for NDE of plasma-sprayed coatings has been a serious problem in the industry for a long time. Traditional methods like ultrasonics or x-ray absorption usually cannot be used because of the high attenuation and the heterogeneity of the coating. On the other hand, sub-surface flaws cannot be detected with liquid penetration technique and electromagnetic methods are not suitable for dielectric coating. However, photothermal techniques have been successfully applied [1,2], but first the introduction of fast infrared scanning systems has lead to reasonable speed of inspection from the practical point of view