SAFEGUARDING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WITH ROBOTIC INSPECTION,

Opportunities and Challenges

Reliable Non Destructive Testing (NDT) is vital to the integrity, performance management and

sustainability of capital assets in safety critical industries such as oil and gas, aerospace,

transportation, power generation and off-shore and subsea operations. The talk will explore

opportunities to improve the NDT of industrial structures and decrease the cost of inspection

by automating the NDT with mobile robots. The challenges of developing mobile wall climbing

and submersible robots will be presented that can provide access to test sites 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. Some of these developments provide the possibility of saving

costs by reducing outage times or carrying out the NDT in-service thus preventing expensive

outages. 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.

07 Nov 2016

1

SAFEGUARDING CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE WITH ROBOTIC INSPECTION Opportunities and Challenges

Professor Tariq SattarTWI Chair and Director of LSBIC

Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB21 6ALSchool of Engineering, LSBU, London, UK.

The London South Bank Innovation Centre (LSBIC) for the Automation of NDT

Based in Granta Park, Great Abington, Cambridge CB2 6AL

Robotics for reliable NDT

To ensure the Integrity, performance management and sustainability of capital assets in safety critical industries e.g.

Oil and gas

Nuclear

Aerospace

Transportation

Power generation

Off-shore and subsea operations

Civil engineering structures

LSBIC performs R&D of Mobile robots to provide access and perform NDT of

• very large structures

• test sites located in dangerous and hazardous environments

The aim is to

• reduce inspection costs, outage times during planned outages

• Provide in-service inspection where possible to eliminate outages

Internal inspection of Gas Boiler in Power Plant

90m tall boiler, tapered at the bottom

Example where Robotic NDT would save time and cost and improve Health & Safety

Expensive access using platforms and scaffolding

WALL-CLIMBING ROBOTS FOR NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING DEVELOPED BY LSBIC

Climbing NDT robots use different adhesion techniques:

CROCELLSpermanent magnets

ROBAIRpneumatic suction cups

VORTEXVortex machines

LSBIC’S VORTEX WALL CLIMBING ROBOTS

ANSYS analysis of streamlines and pressures created by VORTEX machines

Aim: Increase Payload capability of climbing robot

Achieved: 4 kg with an A4 sized robot.

07 Nov 2016

2

LSBIC’S VORTEX MACHINES: Wall climbing robots for NDT, inspection and surveillance on non-ferrous surfaces

Top: A4 SIZE ROBOTS WITH 200g PAYLOAD CAPABILITY

Bottom: A4 SIZE ROBOTS WITH 4kg PAYLOAD CAPABILITY

VOTEXSCAN ROBOT WITH GROUND PENETRATING RADAR TO INSPECT CONCRETE STRUCTURES

.

Robust wall climbing robots with large payload capability use permanent magnet adhesion and fast wheeled motion.

Wireless robot shown here performs phased array ultrasound NDT of vertical & horizontal welds on ship hulls.

Climbing Robot Cell for welding and NDT - CROCELLS

Team of climbing robots

One performs Electric arc welding by profiling seam with a laser system

A utility robot follows the welder and carries the wire drum and feeder

A tug robot aides the welding robot

An NDT robot tracks the welding hot spot and performs weld inspection with phased array ultrasonics

Magnetic adhesion climbing robots adapt to surface

curvatures (concave or convex) or change surfaces

WALL CLIMBING COMPETITION

NDT robot adapts to Convex/Concave structures

SIRCS - CONCRETE CLIMBERUses permanent magnet adhesion to attach to reinforcement bars at depths of 40mm

PhD study to investigate flux focussing techniques

Nuclear

decommissioning:

Laser cutting of

steel structures

with snake arm and

wall climbing robot

LASERSNAKE PROJECT

Rapid Automated Volumetric Inspection of Railway Welds with Phased Array Techniques

RailectForwardPROJECT

INTERNAL INSPECTON OF PETROCHEMICAL STORAGE TANKS

07 Nov 2016

3

Manual tank floor inspection, underside corrosion defects

CLEAN TANKS Diameter 2 to 20 metres, fixed roof. Visual inspection, a few ultrasonic thickness measurements.

Crude oil tanksfloating roofs, dia20 - 100 metres, carbon steel. Floor thickness of 6-12.5mm, Preparation: 6-9 months .Another 3-6 months to clean .

Visual inspection followed by MFL. UT final method to validate the problem areas.

ROBTANK PROJECT: Mobile wall climbing robot enters through manholes on

the floating or fixed roof of a tank to inspect tank floor and internal walls

Drain outlet Welded

stud

180° 0°

B-Scan line with origin at centre

Drain outlet

Reflection of drain outlet in tank wall

Welded stud on tank floor

Top of tank wall

Tank floor weld

Corner of tank floor

Tank floor weld 27

0°

Mapping of floor defects using rotating bulk wave ultrasonic technique

PROJECT: Sensor Bots for petrochemical tank floor assessment –Funding by TWI/NSIRC and LSBU

1.Active buoyancy control to hop robot aorund on the floor of a tank

2. Use Ultrasound NDT to look for floor corrosion

3. Under liquid data communications to localize a Bot and transmit data

FPSOOil platform with pre-tensioned

risers

Tie-back Risers

Pipelines from minor fields

Risers from oil wells

The floating platform, riser, flow-line and tie-back environment

NDT of Mooring chains and flexible risers in off-shore oil and gas production

Rapid Integrity Assessment of Flexible Risers for Offshore Oil and Gas Installations –Using Gamma ray Radiography

RiserSure project

Outer sheath

Anti-wear layer

Carcass

Internal pressure sheathInterlocked pressure

armourBackup pressure armour

Inner layer tensile armour

Outer layer tensile armour

Anti-wear layer

MOORINSPECT PROJECT

INSPECTION OF MOORING CHAINS ON FLOATING PLATFORMS AND FPSO’S WITH A CHAIN CLIMBING ROBOT AND ULTRASOUND GUIDED WAVES

Scanning Arm mounted on this face

Ultrasonic range finders for detecting walls and strengthening plates

Two motors, one for wheel motion, the other to change direction of wheel

ThrustersThrusters

The FPSO project:

Swimming and wheeled robot to inspect FPSO’s –Floating Production & Storage of Oil tanks

07 Nov 2016

4

FPSO swimming and floor inspection robot to inspect tank floors

and welds on strengthening plates

Underwater

Weld & Corrosion

Inspector

for offshore

floating structures

-uses phased

array ultrasound

NDT

Research: Vessel energy efficiency enhancement using sensing for LNG Storage Containers PhD study using acoustic emission

Circumferential weld

Nozzle weld to safe end

Nozzle weld to shell

Upper shell

Lower shell

Bottom head

The RIMINI project: Inspection of Nuclear Reactor Pressure Vessel Circumferential and Nozzle welds

Large

TrackOperator

Robot

Current method of inspection uses large robots to do inspection – robot transported and assembled on site before immersion in RPV

• Require large and heavy robots with a central mast costing millions, manual set up time, tying up of polar crane needed for other tasks

Drawing of the pipe crawling robot and scanning arm inside a nozzle

The final RIMINI Inspection robot

Wall climber with nozzle crawler and scanning arm

Neutrally buoyant climber+ nozzle crawler

Positively buoyant climber, parked with suction cups

RIMINI: Nozzle inspection robot NDT of nozzle weld on 45°, 860 mm diameter feeder pipe in the primary circuit

Requires operators to attach scanner arm in a radiation environment.

07 Nov 2016

5

CAD schematic drawing - mobile inspection robot deploying NDT sensors with 7-axis arm.

The RRNDT project: Ultrasound INSPECTION OF NOZZLE WELDS ON 760mm diameter pipes in the primary circuit of nuclear power plants with a climbing robot

Inspection of aircraft wings and fuselage with climbing robots

Inspection of rows of rivets on aircraft wings and fuselage with a climbing robot

ULTRASONIC PHASED ARRAYS to inspect rivets on aircraft, ROBAIR project

EDDY CURRENTS inspection of rows of rivets on the wings and fuselage of aircraft, ROBAIR project

Thermographic detection of loose rivets

Climbing ring robot for wind turbine tower and pipe inspection

The Ring Pipe Climbing Robot

The WInspector project: Advanced shearography kit and robotic deployment platform for on-site inspection of wind blades

Internal pipe climbing robot

07 Nov 2016

6

.

Eddy Current Inspection of turbine blade with 7 axis, force controlled portable arm

Mass of arm: 22 kg

Reach: 600 mm

Repeatability: 1 mm

Adept Controller with force sensor module

Contact force adaptation to uncertain complex surfaces

11 Awards for innovation

in industrial robotsPublic engagement via science and

engineering exhibitions

Robot Detectives: Sherlock Holmes meets Spiderman Selected for exhibition by the:Royal Society of Science (2011)Royal Academy of Engineering (2012)

End