The inspection and maintenance of pressurizer internal structures by using the tele-operated robotic manipulator in nuclear power plants

A pressurizer is one of the major safety related equipment of nuclear power plants. In order to inspect and maintain the internal structures of a pressurizer, jumpers have to enter the pressurizer, in spite of the high dose exposure. Therefore, a tele-operated robotic manipulator has been developed, which consists of four parts with 2DOFs arms, a gripper, base frame, and control console. The task of this robotic manipulator is to extract the damaged electric heaters and inspect the internal structure of the pressurizer. The gripper hanging from the manipulator approaches the heaters and extracts the damaged heater by using a self-locking mechanism. In order to investigate the structural stability of the robotic manipulator, a stress analysis has been performed by using the ANSYS code. The results of this paper include the position control and vibration control of robotic gripper and the development of processing visual information for a vision sensor.