Rimini robot

Underwater Wall Climbing Robot for Nuclear Pressure Vessel Inspection

This robot is a development of an underwater teleoperated wall climbing robot that works inside a nuclear pressure vessel. The robot is positioned over each nozzle in the pressure vessel via teleoperation using visual feedback. The wall climber carries another pipe crawling robot on its back inside a 600 mm tube. After positioning the wall climber accurately over the nozzle, the pipe crawler makes a transition into the nozzle and travels to the internal weld to be scan.

The climber design is modular and symmetrical so that any of the identical robot links and brackets that make up the body of the robot are interchangeable. It uses vacuum adhesion produced by 3 air motor turned high speed propeller to be able to climb on the internal walls of a pressure vessel while submerged in water. The robot is teleoperated and positioned over a nozzle (760mm diameter at its opening but tapers down to 540mm at a distance of 700mm from the wall).

A major consideration in the design is the radiation hardening of motors, sensors and umbilical cable as well as the selection of materials to prevent chemical interaction with the water in the vessel and its possible contamination by the inspection system. Another important consideration is the assured retrieval of the robot in case of breakdown.

Country & Year

England - 2006

Authors

Hernando Leon-Rodriguez
Tariq Sattar
Jianzhong Shang