US 4,398,552 AGranted

Apparatus for pickling the inner wall of tubular material

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Kobe Seiko Sho

InventorsYoshiro Tanaka, Noritsugu Fujii, Kazuo Akagi, Ryujiro Shitamatsu

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Abstract

An apparatus for pickling the inner wall of a tubular member, for example, a zirconium or zircaloy tubular member as a cladding tube for nuclear fuel. The apparatus features the use of ultrasonic instruments for measuring the inner diameter of the tubular member while pickling the inner wall of the same. Owing to the interlocked association of the instruments and mechanism for supplying a pickling liquid into the tubular member, the supply of the pickling liquid can be stopped as soon as the inner diameter has reached a predetermined value. Various mechanisms may also be incorporated in the apparatus to minimize the temperature variation along the length of the tubular member and to improve the accuracy of the measurement by the instruments.

Claims17

Dependent claims

An apparatus for pickling the inner water of at least one tubular member, comprising;

a support table for demountably supporting the tubular member in an axially inclined position;
a water tank mounted on the support table for allowing the tubular member to extend therethrough;
pickling liquid-supplying means operatively associated with the water tank for charging a pickling liquid into the tubular member;
recovery means disposed in rear of the water tank for recovering the pickling liquid which has been used and has flowed out from the rear end of the tubular member;
and
means disposed in the water tank for measuring the inner diameter of the tubular member by ultrasonic waves, said measuring means and said pickling liquid-supplying means being interlocked for controlling the supply of the pickling liquid.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.