Calibration System for Nuclear Power Facility Inspection Robot
Inside a nuclear reactor there are hundreds of tubular sections that form a heat exchanger to transfer heat from “hot” steam, generated by the reactor, to “clean” water that passes through the steam turbines to generate electric power. A robot assembly is placed into the chamber of the heat exchanger and works remotely with long probes to inspect each tubular section looking for holes and worn areas that might allow for leakage. Pinpoint was approached by a large firm in the nuclear power industry to develop a laser measuring system that could calibrate the position of the robot arm so that its position and orientation could be accurately monitored when it was later in use inside the unfriendly heat exchanger environment. The Microgage system was selected for this task and Pinpoint developed and manufactured these calibration systems for checking each robot, prior to its use. The picture above shows one of Pinpoint’s engineers checking the angular orientation and deflection of the first arm section on the inspection robot.
