• 제목/요약/키워드: Underwater facility

검색결과 32건 처리시간 0.016초

Preliminary Investigation for Feasibility of Wave Energy Converters and the Surrounding Sea as Test-site for Marine Equipment

  • Park, Jin-Yeong;Baek, Hyuk;Shim, Hyungwon;Choi, Jong-Su
    • 한국해양공학회지
    • /
    • 제34권5호
    • /
    • pp.351-360
    • /
    • 2020
  • Of late, demand for test sites for marine equipment such as ASV, AUV, ROV, and various underwater sensors is increasing. The authors have focused on an oscillating water column (OWC), which is being constructed near Chagwido Island Jeju, as one of the test-sites. The main objective of the OWC is to produce wave energy and develop technologies. It has been built in the sea approximately 1 km off the coast. It has berth accommodation and some rooms that can be used as laboratories. To investigate the feasibility of its usage as a test site for marine equipment, we acquired bathymetric data around the OWC by using a multi-beam echo sounder and a single-beam scanning sonar. The accessibility of the OWC from nearby ports and the use of support vessels or ships were also investigated. 3D point cloud data from the multi-beam echo sounder and 2D acoustic images from the scanning sonar are expected to be used as references for identifying changes over time. In addition, through these experiments, we derived a procedure to use this facility as a test site by using the IDEF0 functional modelling method. Based on this preliminary investigation and previously reported examples, we determined the general conditions and preferences for evaluating the performance of various marine equipment heuristically. Finally, we developed five applications that were derived from this investigation.

DEVELOPMENT OF AN AMPHIBIOUS ROBOT FOR VISUAL INSPECTION OF APR1400 NPP IRWST STRAINER ASSEMBLY

  • Jang, You Hyun;Kim, Jong Seog
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
    • /
    • 제46권3호
    • /
    • pp.439-446
    • /
    • 2014
  • An amphibious inspection robot system (hereafter AIROS) is being developed to visually inspect the in-containment refueling storage water tank (hereafter IRWST) strainer in APR1400 instead of a human diver. Four IRWST strainers are located in the IRWST, which is filled with boric acid water. Each strainer has 108 sub-assembly strainer fin modules that should be inspected with the VT-3 method according to Reg. guide 1.82 and the operation manual. AIROS has 6 thrusters for submarine voyage and 4 legs for walking on the top of the strainer. An inverse kinematic algorithm was implemented in the robot controller for exact walking on the top of the IRWST strainer. The IRWST strainer has several top cross braces that are extruded on the top of the strainer, which can be obstacles of walking on the strainer, to maintain the frame of the strainer. Therefore, a robot leg should arrive at the position beside the top cross brace. For this reason, we used an image processing technique to find the top cross brace in the sole camera image. The sole camera image is processed to find the existence of the top cross brace using the cross edge detection algorithm in real time. A 5-DOF robot arm that has multiple camera modules for simultaneous inspection of both sides can penetrate narrow gaps. For intuitive presentation of inspection results and for management of inspection data, inspection images are stored in the control PC with camera angles and positions to synthesize and merge the images. The synthesized images are then mapped in a 3D CAD model of the IRWST strainer with the location information. An IRWST strainer mock-up was fabricated to teach the robot arm scanning and gaiting. It is important to arrive at the designated position for inserting the robot arm into all of the gaps. Exact position control without anchor under the water is not easy. Therefore, we designed the multi leg robot for the role of anchoring and positioning. Quadruped robot design of installing sole cameras was a new approach for the exact and stable position control on the IRWST strainer, unlike a traditional robot for underwater facility inspection. The developed robot will be practically used to enhance the efficiency and reliability of the inspection of nuclear power plant components.