1. Application areas

There are two families of applications that could eventually be of interest to all civil nuclear operators:

• measurement campaigns to support and improve thermodynamic evolution models: today, these pressure measurement tests require long, costly rod extraction and transport operations, which are restrictive from a safety and radiation protection point of view. These examinations are carried out in specialized laboratories, and involve piercing the rods to be examined, which then become nuclear waste. They are necessary to determine the thermodynamic state of the rods during operation, and to support the associated safety studies. These operations are also carried out when new fuel products are launched, to check that their operational evolution is in line with theoretical expectations;

• detection of damaged...