Russia’s National Research Nuclear University (NRNU) MEPhI [Moscow Engineering & Physics Institute] is creating a line of instruments for radioisotope control of industrial equipment for the oil industry and metallurgy. One of the devices has interested Russia’s largest steel company, Severstal, and will be tested at the Cherepovets Metallurgical Plant.
Production conditions at metallurgical enterprises often make it difficult to check to what extent some technological capacity (tank) is full or empty. To do this, sophisticated monitoring methods are required, in particular, translucent technological containers and the use of gamma radiation. In the recent past, metallurgical plants have used foreign control systems from Berthold Technologies (Germany) and Thermo Fisher (USA) for this. However, as a result of import substitution, Russia now has its own control systems. One of them was developed by a team at NRNU MEPhI, headed by Associate Professor of the Department of Experimental Nuclear Physics & Cosmophysics, Alexander Khromov.
The control system in the simplest case consists of two components: a source of gamma radiation and detector, which are placed on different sides of the tank. MEPhI has developed a domestic version of the detector-gamma-relay. Sources of radiation based on radioactive cobalt or caesium for the system will be supplied by the St Petersburg company Ritverts However, in testing at Severstal, radiation sources available to the metallurgical company will be used.
Development team member Arina Vakhnina said a gamma relay that will be tested at Severstal in April will answer one simple question: whether the tank is empty or full. However, in the near future the detector will be completed and will also be able to perform the functions of a level gauge to determines the level of contents in the tank, as well as the density of the substance flowing through a pipe, which is in demand in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries. To do this, the MEPhI programmers will modify the software of the device.
The MEPhI team is also working on an even larger device designed to control the characteristics of steel sheet produced at metallurgical plants using x-rays. The four-metre-high device will be integrated into the steel line, and control the quality of the rolled products during operation. It is planned that in the summer a prototype of this device will be installed in MEPhI before being tested at Severstal.
Arina Vakhnina said similar devices from Western companies, despite restrictions, are imported at high cost for use in specific situations where domestic analogues are not suitable. The advantage of MEPhI development is that scientists are now ready to customise the device to meet customer needs. Other advantages are that it uses innovative components, for example, silicon photographs, which result in higher accuracy and make it possible to work in electromagnetic fields, which is important for metallurgical enterprises. The project received support from the Technology Accelerator MEPhI and Rosatom.
