Confocal chromatic sensor for displacement monitoring in research reactor

Confocal chromatic microscopy is an optical technique allowing measuring displacement, thickness, and roughness with a sub-micrometric precision. Its operation principle is based on a wavelength encoding of the object position. Historically, the company STIL based in the south of France has first developed this class of sensors in the 90's. Of course, this sensor can only operate in a sufficiently transparent medium in the used spectral domain. It presents the advantage of being contactless, which is a crucial advantage for some applications such as the fuel rod displacement measurement in a nuclear research reactor core and in particular for cladding-swelling measurements. The extreme environmental conditions encountered in such experiments i.e. high temperature, high pressure, high radiations flux, strong vibrations, surrounding turbulent flow can affect the performances of this optical system. We then need to implement mitigation techniques to optimize the sensor performance in this specific environment. Another constraint concerns the small volume available in the irradiation rig next to the rod to monitor, implying the challenge to conceive a miniaturized sensor able to operate under these constraints.