Application of a new passive acoustic leak detection approach to recordings from the Dounreay prototype fast reactor

A new approach for passive acoustic leak detection in sodium fast reactors without using a priori knowledge on the leak noise is introduced. The new approach is tested on recordings of argon and water injections from the Dounreay prototype fast reactor under digital mixing with two types of additional noise. It is estimated that the new approach is able to detect injection of argon into sodium in a stable background noise at signal to noise ratios between -9 and -17 dB with a low false alarm rate and with few free parameters in the signal processing. For detection of water into sodium injection the corresponding signal to noise ratios range from -9 to -18 dB.