Walking and Climbing Service Robots for Safety Inspection of Nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessels

Nuclear reactor pressure vessels are often required regular inspection and maintenance in order to ensure the safety of the reactors. Failing to carry out proper maintenance could cause severe casualty. The usual way of carrying out inspection in these hazardous environments is using long reach fixed base manipulators. However, these manipulators suffer from low payload capacity and relatively large end point deflections. Also, the installation and the storage of these long manipulators could be costly. An alternative solution is to use walking-climbing robots, which overcome the problems encountered by the long reach manipulators. In this paper, two robots, NERO (Nuclear Electric Robot Operator) and SADIE (Sizewell A Duct Inspection Equipment) which have been applied successfully to inspect two Magnox reactors in the UK are described. The deployment and operational experience of these robots are also explained. Finally the applications and the usefulness of these robots for improving safety inspection of nuclear reactors in general are discussed in this paper.