Tele-robotic Application for Nozzle Dam Maintenance Operation in Nuclear Power Plants

This paper describes the development of a robotic maintenance system for use in a maintenance operation of the nozzle dam in a water chamber of a steam generator at the Kori nuclear power plant in Korea. The robotic maintenance system was designed to minimize the personnel exposure to a hazardous radioactive environment. This robotic maintenance system is operated by a teleoperated control which was designed to perform the nozzle dam maintenance tasks in a remote manner without endangering the human workers. Specific maintenance tasks involve the transportation, insertion, and removal of nozzle dams in a water chamber inside a steam generator via a narrow man-way entrance port. The developed robotic maintenance system has two major subsystems: a two degrees of freedom guiding device acting as the main guiding arm and a master-slave manipulator with a kinematic dissimilarity. The mechanical design considerations, control system, and capabilities of the robotic maintenance system are presented. Finally, a graphical representation of the nozzle dam maintenance processes in a simulated work environment are also demonstrated.