ABSTRACT Ultrasonic transducer (UT) systems are used for non-destructive testing and evaluation across a wide range of industries. In the nuclear industry, radiation damage of the UTs can lead to performance degradation or even complete failure. We have investigated the radiation resilience of a new piezo-polymer (PVDF) UT design. The irradiations were performed in a Cobalt-60 gamma facility with total ionising doses up to 10.5 MGy. Continuous pulse-echo measurements were taken in-situ allowing the performance as a function of time to be monitored. In addition to the UT irradiations and measurements, high fidelity Monte Carlo particle transport simulations were performed to study the radiation environments and the ionising dose profiles within the devices under test. These dose profiles were used to gain insight into the behaviour of PVDF under irradiation. Results show that all sensors were able to withstand the doses achieved without suffering complete failure, with the best performing device only losing 47% of its initial amplitude. Dose profiles for the PVDF show piezoelectric performance to increase by up to 7% at doses around 500 kGy after which performance was found to drop linearly at a rate of between 6.5% and 10% per MGy.

中文翻译：

---

伽马辐照下PVDF超声换能器的原位监测

摘要 超声换能器 (UT) 系统用于各种行业的无损检测和评估。在核工业中，UT 的辐射损坏会导致性能下降甚至完全失效。我们研究了新型压电聚合物 (PVDF) UT 设计的辐射弹性。辐照在 Cobalt-60 γ 设施中进行，总电离剂量高达 10.5 MGy。在原位进行连续脉冲回波测量，允许监测作为时间函数的性能。除了 UT 辐射和测量外，还进行了高保真蒙特卡罗粒子传输模拟，以研究被测设备内的辐射环境和电离剂量分布。这些剂量分布用于深入了解 PVDF 在辐照下的行为。结果表明，所有传感器都能够承受达到的剂量而不会完全失效，性能最佳的设备仅损失其初始振幅的 47%。PVDF 的剂量分布显示，在 500 kGy 左右的剂量下，压电性能增加高达 7%，之后发现性能以每 MGy 6.5% 至 10% 的速率线性下降。