Influence of Optic Cable Construction Parts on Recovery Process after Gamma Irradiation

Fibre optic cables are widely used as communication cables in Instrumentation and Control (I&C) systems. In the case of nuclear power plants (NPPs), using optic cables in mild environments outside of containment areas are very common. However, at present, there is a need for fibre optic cables to be used in containment areas, i.e., with radiation. An optical fibre consists of a highly transparent core that possesses a higher refractive index than the surrounding transparent cladding, which possesses a lower refractive index. Most optical fibres are manufactured from glass (silica with required dopants) which is created at high temperatures from the reaction between gasses. The glass used in optical fibres is sensitive; it becomes dark during exposure to radiation, which compromises the optic functions. That is why there has been a slow infiltration of optic cable in NPP containment areas. Radiation resistant optic fibres have been developed. Although these fibres are called “radiation resistant,” they go through a darkening process (absorbance increase) as well, but not as quickly. Immediately after the irradiation has stopped, a recovery process starts in the glass structure. During this period, optical losses of the glass improve, but not to the original level as before the irradiation. During the testing of optic cables for the installation in nuclear power plant containment areas, we observed an unusual recovery process. In the beginning, a healing effect was observed. However, after a few days of recovery, the healing process stopped, and the trend changed again as a worsening of the optical properties was observed. This paper describes experiments which explain the reasons for such an unexpected behaviour.

Design of a High-performance Flat Reflector Antenna Based on Conformal Transformation Optics

In this paper, we design an implementable high-performance flat reflector based on conformal transformation optics. In the proposed 2-dimensional device, the rescaling refractive index approach is applied to overcome the sub-unit refractive index issue, resulting in an all-dielectric isotropic graded-index medium that is physically implementable. Rotating the permeability profile around the antenna axis yields the 3-dimensional profile of the flat reflector construction. The dielectric with continuous refractive index profile is split into eleven layers with a constant refractive index. The proposed antenna requires only dielectric layers with the permittivity of 1.1 to 3.8, making it realizable. Simulation results show that the proposed flat reflector can operate in wide frequency bandwidth. The simulated antenna gain is about 25.27 to 29.55 dBi in the 13-30 GHz frequency range with the side-lobe level below -15 dB. Design and simulation of the proposed antenna are done using COMSOL Multiphysics, and simulation results are validated with CST Studio Suite.