Robots Getting Ready to Ease Inspection of Concrete Structures EPRI is pursuing the development and demonstration of a robotic nondestructive

evaluation tool that would facilitate the safe inspection of concrete structures at nuclear power plants. The energy industry contains a number of large, curved vertical structures where structural inspection is required, including cooling towers, nuclear containments and hydroelectric dams. Inspecting these structures typically requires several people and the use of extensive scaffolding. Automating such inspections would increase safety and reduce inspection time and costs. To identify candidate automated robotic technologies, EPRI conducted a wide-ranging review of available technologies, their readiness levels, and whether they could be adapted to the electricity sector. Through this search, EPRI came across a concrete crawler device that can crawl up curved, vertical concrete structures carrying a payload of about 20 kilograms. This crawler also can navigate gaps, seams and obstacles that may be encountered on the concrete surface, such as conduit. As configured, however, the device did not include a positioning system or a nondestructive evaluation (NDE) device. EPRI evaluated various mapping and positioning systems for this application and selected the Simultaneous Mapping and Location System code developed by the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany, which could be configured to the crawler. Likewise, an NDE device capable of collecting information by means of air coupling was identified and mounted on the crawler. A demonstration during the Fall of 2012 confirmed the individual capabilities of the subsystems, and EPRI is now pursuing integration of the crawler, positioning system and NDE device. The first field demonstration of the integrated device will be at a hydroelectric dam in 2013. The lessons learned from this application are expected to be readily transferred to nuclear containments and cooling towers. A short video of the concrete crawler can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/EPRIvideos For more information, contact Maria Guimaraes at 704.595.2708 or mguimaraes@epri.com.