A new robot for inspection of concrete successfully climbed the dam’s walls, testing the dam’s structural reliability.
Numerous of the America’s 104 nuclear plants are crossing the mid age of their deigned serviceable life, while, according to ASCE, several dams have almost at the verge of end of their design life. Testing of these precious structures is necessary to maintain the safety. The robot, named “crawler bot”, will cost few dollars by automating the testing process.
Few Words from Project Manager
The senior project manager, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Maria Guimaraes says “We were previously testing this is laboratories only. Now the real-word results are awesome,” about the test of robot conducted near Niagara on Robert Moses Hydroelectric Dam. When a structure needs inspection, we usually use rappels workers or scaffolding down the utility, says Guimaraes. The robot could minimize or completely eliminate the need to send the worker up and down the structures. “The full combined system is a whole new thing for me,” she says.
Crawler Bot or Concrete Testing
Crawler bot is a modified version of a marketable available robot by ICM (International Climbing Machines), an Ithaca manufacturer. A 110-volt vacuum is installed in robot, which creates a vacuum suction chamber between its tracks, helping the bot to be stick to the wall. The friction between the foam tracks is very low hence allowing the robot to uphold the suction that is so strong that it can carry weight up to 40 lbs. and even cross over bolts, nuts or cracked concrete. “When I tried to remove it from the wall, I simple was unable to do it,” says Guimaraes. Another step to achieve was to install the sensors on robot to test the concrete.
Investigators from numerous universities and research assemblies, including the ERPI, equipped the robot with numerous non-destructive evaluation (NDE) systems to judge thestructural integrity of the structure. Acoustic sensor was used to check the delamination at the Niagara test by Guimaraes and her mates. An “air coupling” mechanism was used by sensor, meaning that the structure will not be touched by the sensor to check the delamination, according to Guimaraes. New York Power Authority partially funded the test and help them to get access the dam and its secret historical data, without which it was not possible to perform the test. NYPA will consider the areas indicated by the robot, when the will repair the dam in 2014.
Future Plans:
For future, the researcher plans to install the sensors on robot to check the level of the moisture in concrete wall and the integrity of reinforcement. The robot is equipped with a microwave antenna to tests the concrete’s reinforcement. “The plan is that we can change the robot’s sensor type and let it keep running,” says Guimaraes. After choosing the correct sensors, the robot will follow a predetermined path and records the regions where it finds problems in the utility.
The need of the test was just felt after the release of a report by Nuclear Energy Standards Coordination Collaborative (NESCC), stating the new recommendations for the improvement of repairing work for nuclear plant concrete and showing the gaps and conflicts with the existing and old standards and codes. The NESCC also stats that there is no implemented code currently for the repair of nuclear plants. It decides to change it soon which will increase the popularity and demand for Guimaraes robot.
Guimaraes and the team hope to have a commercial version of the robot by 2016, but she says there are still many tests that must take place before that can happen.
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