An Assessment of Persistent Acoustic Monitoring of a Nuclear Reactor during Full Power Generation

Persistent low-frequency (<180 Hz) acoustic detection took place within the boundaries of Oak Ridge National Laboratory to monitor full power operations High Flux Isotope Reactor. Three sensors were installed at distances 69, 101, and 914 m from northeast corner cooling towers assess four reactor generation cycles. Features extracted spectral density calculations where data collected during on off operations. Diverse features present power, including a 21.4 Hz fundamental frequency ascending harmonics. Using bandpass filters, these related frequencies isolated summed, root mean square energy was calculated. The method isolating summing characteristic provided significant improvement in identifying behavior when raw signals obscured by noise.