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
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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
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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