Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Depth-adaptive controller for spent nuclear fuel inspections

  • Song, Bongsub (Department of Robotics Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST)) ;
  • Park, Jongwon (Nuclear Robot Laboratory, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)) ;
  • Yun, Dongwon (Department of Robotics Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST))
  • Received : 2019.04.16
  • Accepted : 2020.01.14
  • Published : 2020.08.25
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

The IAEA held the IAEA Robotics Challenge 2017 (IRC2017) to protect workers during inspections of spent nuclear fuel and to improve work efficiency and accuracy rates. To this end, we developed an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) system called the spent fuel check vehicle (SCV). The SCV extracts and tracks the target through image processing, and it is necessary to find suitable parameters for the SNF storage environment in advance. This preliminary work takes time. It is also difficult to prepare the environment in which the work will proceed. In addition, if the preliminary work does not proceed as planned, the system will not move at the proper speed and will become unstable, with yawing and overshoot. To solve this problem, we developed a controller with a camera that can extract the depth at which the target is stored and allow distance-adaptive control. This controller is able to attenuate system instability factors such as yawing and overshoot better than existing controllers by continuously changing system operation parameters according to the depth. In addition, the time required for preliminary work during inspections can be shortened.

Keywords

References

  1. F.N. von Hippel, Plutonium and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, Science 293 (2001) 2397-2398, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1064667.
  2. S.J. Tobin, Determining Plutonium Mass in Spent Fuel with Non-destructive Assay Techniques, IAEA-CN-184-130, 2010, IAEA, 2010.
  3. M.G. Bunn, J. Weeks, J.P. Holdren, A.M. MacFarlane, S.E. Pickett, A. Suzuki, T. Suzuki, Interim Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Safe, Flexible, and Cost-Effective Approach to Spent Fuel Management, 2001.
  4. A.B.J. Jr, Spent fuel storage experience, Nucl. Technol. 43 (1979) 165-173, https://doi.org/10.13182/NT79-A16308.
  5. J. Iqbal, A.M. Tahir, R. ul Islam, Riaz-un-Nabi, Robotics for Nuclear Power Plants - Challenges and future perspectives, in: 2012 2nd Int. Conf. Appl. Robot. Power Ind. CARPI, 2012, pp. 151-156, https://doi.org/10.1109/CARPI.2012.6473373.
  6. L. Briones, P. Bustamante, M.A. Serna, Wall-climbing robot for inspection in nuclear power plants, in: Proc. 1994 IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom. vol. 2, 1994, pp. 1409-1414, https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.1994.351292.
  7. P. Desbats, F. Geffard, G. Piolain, A. Coudray, Force-feedback teleoperation of an industrial robot in a nuclear spent fuel reprocessing plant, Ind. Robot Int. J. 33 (2006) 178-186, https://doi.org/10.1108/0143991061070300.
  8. M. Wang, X. Long, P. Chang, T. Padlr, Autonomous robot navigation with rich information mapping in nuclear storage environments, in: 2018 IEEE Int. Symp. Saf. Secur. Rescue Robot. SSRR, 2018, pp. 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1109/SSRR.2018.8468634.
  9. C. Ye, M.G. Zheng, M.L. Wang, R.H. Zhang, Z.Q. Xiong, The design and simulation of a new spent fuel pool passive cooling system, Ann. Nucl. Energy 58 (2013) 124-131, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2013.03.007.
  10. V. Chalkiadakis, N. Papandroulakis, G. Livanos, K. Moirogiorgou, G. Giakos, M. Zervakis, Designing a small-sized autonomous underwater vehicle architecture for regular periodic fish-cage net inspection, in: 2017 IEEE Int. Conf. Imaging Syst. Tech. IST, 2017, pp. 1-6, https://doi.org/10.1109/IST.2017.8261525.
  11. R. Sharp, M. Decr, Radiation Tolerance of Components and Materials in Nuclear Robot Applications, (n.d.) vol. 9.
  12. Nuclear fuel fabrication - world nuclear association. http://www.worldnuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/conversion-enrichmentand-fabrication/fuel-fabrication.aspx. (Accessed 17 October 2018).
  13. X. Wu, W. Li, Y. Zhang, W. Tian, G. Su, S. Qiu, Analysis of the loss of pool cooling accident in a PWR spent fuel pool with MAAP5, Ann. Nucl. Energy 72 (2014) 198-213, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2014.05.030.
  14. J.R. Wang, H.T. Lin, Y.S. Tseng, C.K. Shih, Application of TRACE and CFD in the spent fuel pool of chinshan nuclear power plant, Appl. Mech. Mater. (2012). https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.145.78.
  15. J. Park, C. Youngsoo, Unmanned surface vehicle for nuclear spent fuel inspection, Trans. Korean Nucl. Soc. Spring Meet. 2018-Spring (2018).
  16. A.B.J. Johnson, Behavior of Spent Nuclear Fuel in Water Pool Storage, Battelle Pacific Northwest Labs, Richland, Wash. (USA), 1977, https://doi.org/10.2172/7284014.

Cited by

  1. Fuzzy-PID controller for motion control of CFETR multi-functional maintenance platform vol.53, pp.7, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2021.01.025