Patent ID: 7885370

Claim:
A method of early sensing of water leakage, through chemical concentration monitoring, in a nuclear reactor system using a liquid metal and molten salt, the method, implemented by a computer, comprising: measuring an electrical conductivity of a first channel and a second channel of a steam generator or a heat exchanger, the first channel including an outlet 1 and an outlet 2 and the second channel including an inlet; performing at least one of a dilution correction and a temperature compensation with respect to the measured electrical conductivity; calculating a first difference value between a corrected electrical conductivity of the outlet 1 and a corrected electrical conductivity of the inlet based on a method using a Wheatstone Bridge circuit; calculating a second difference value between a corrected electrical conductivity of the outlet 2 and the electrical conductivity of the inlet based on the method using the Wheatstone Bridge circuit; calculating an identification value associated with the water leakage in the steam generator or the heat exchanger by summing a first comparison value and a second comparison value, the first comparison value being outputted by comparing a predetermined threshold value with the calculated first difference value and the second comparison value being outputted by comparing the predetermined threshold value with the calculated second difference value; attempting to sense water leakage by comparing the calculated identification value and a reference value; and determining that the water leakage is sensed when the identification value is greater than the reference value, in which case a leakage alarm is raised; and determining that no water leakage is sensed when the identification value is less than or equal to the reference value, wherein the first comparison value is one of 0, 1 and the first difference value, and the second comparison value is one of 0, 1 and the second difference value.