Abstract
Reliable Non Destructive Testing (NDT) is vital to the integrity and performance management of capital assets in safety critical industries such as aerospace, transportation, pipelines, petro-chemical processing, and power generation [ ]. The structures that are to be inspected are usually very large and located in remote and hazardous environments. The NDT system has to be deployed by first providing very expensive access, requiring the erection of scaffolding and lengthy preparation before NDT can start. In addition the system must be capable of finding and characterizing component and structural defects to a high probability of detection thereby decreasing the probability of failure. Another priority is to reduce outage time as the cost of loss of production runs into millions. This presentation describes recent developments in mobile wall climbing, swimming and pipe crawling robots that provide the means to perform NDT on difficult to access structures and provide the possibility of carrying out the NDT in-service thus preventing costly outages. In confined and hazardous environments they are the only means to reach a test site and perform the NDT. Our research, funded by the European Commission and Industry, is developing mobile NDT Robots to go inside petro-chemical storage tanks (while full of product) to inspect floors for pitting and corrosion [ ], to climb on the hulls of steel ships to inspect hundreds of kilometres of weld [ ], to inspect mooring chains securing off-shore oil and gas platforms in both air and underwater, to inspect the walls of petro-chemical storage tanks for corrosion and weld integrity, to inspect nozzle welds inside nuclear pressure vessels, to inspect concrete structures such as dams and buildings, to internally inspect buried pipelines that are currently not reachable by intelligent pigs, to climb up off-shore wind turbine towers to inspect the blades[ ], and to climb on aircraft wings and fuselage to detect for cracks and loose rivets.
Highlights
Application areasMotivating examplesGas boiler, Ship hulls, Offshore structures, dams, nuclear structures Robotic Non Destructive Testing (NDT) The 4 M’sMobility, manipulation, measurement, monitoringMobility & manipulationWall climbing robots MeasurementNDT Robot prototypesOffshore underwater
The challenge is to develop robots that can provide access to test sites and perform reliable NDT on very large vertical structures or structures located in hazardous environments thereby eliminating the large expense of erecting scaffolding or lengthy preparation for rope and platform access before inspection can start
The presentation will show climbing and swimming robots developed to detect weld and corrosion defects on ship hulls, floating platforms, mooring chains, petrochemical storage tanks, pressure vessels, concrete structures, wind blades and aircraft wings and fuselage. These developments provide the possibility of saving costs by reducing outage times or carrying out the NDT in-service preventing expensive outages
Summary
The aim is to reduce inspection costs, outage times during planned outages Provide in-service inspection where possible to eliminate outages. Climbing NDT robots that use different adhesion techniques: permanent magnets, pneumatic suction cups and Vortex machines. Team of climbing robots One performs Electric arc welding by profiling seam with a laser system. Wall climbing robots for NDT, inspection and surveillance on non-ferrous surfaces. ANSYS analysis of streamlines and pressures created by VORTEX machines Aim: Increase Payload capability of climbing robot. VORTEX MACHINES: Wall climbing robots for NDT, inspection and surveillance on non-ferrous surfaces. Phased array electronic scanning with different angles Array of elements, all individually wired, pulsed and time shifted. Electronic beam steering reduces the number of scanning axes required to examine a defect
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