2. Acoustic microscopy

2.1 Mechanical and ultrasonic basics

In the context of linear elasticity , the stresses imposed on the material are related to the induced strains by means of tensors comprising 81 coefficients: C _ijkl . Knowledge of these coefficients fully determines the material's elastic behavior. For reasons of symmetry and crystallographic peculiarities, the number of coefficients can be greatly reduced. In the case of conventional sintered fuels from PWR-type nuclear power plants such as UO ₂ or MOX (fuel...