Printed Strain Gauges for High Temperature Applications (> 300 C)

The real-time understanding of strain and deformation of materials provides
prognostic health monitoring of components of current operational reactors and
valuable data that shortens the timeline for the development of new nuclear relevant materials in test reactor experiments. This report discusses the current status of the development and testing of additively manufactured strain gaugesfor operation at elevated temperatures. This has potential to improve the sensor design and manufacturing techniques to meet the requirements of active in-pile sensing in current and advanced nuclear reactors (i.e., in terms of environment conditions, sample geometry, and materials compatibility). The developmental additively manufactured strain gauges are exposed to separate effects testing (i.e., mechanical strain, high temperature) to determine environmental factors that affect the strain gauge. In addition, sensor qualification methodologies are further developed for determining the reliability and robustness at the interface of the AM strain gauge materials.