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Robotics Enable
Corrosion Inspection Inside Nuclear Reactor
KATHY RIGGS LARSEN, ASSOCIATE EDITOR I
Team members test a robotic arm and nondestructive testing tools in a water-filled mock-up of an NRU nuclear reactor vessel. The robotic system was specially designed for annual in-service inspections of the reactor vessel to assess weld repairs made in 2010 and for metal loss due to corrosion. Photo courtesy of Eclipse Scientific.
24 MATERIALS PERFORMANCE March 2012
n the early morning hours of May 15, 2009, during a shutdown of the National Research Universal (NRU) (Chalk River, Ontario,
Canada) nuclear reactor vessel at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's (AECL's) Chalk River Laboratories facility, a heavy wa- ter leak was detected within the NRU reactor facility. The leak was attributed to a small hole in the re- actor vessel wall caused by corro- sion. Ensuing high-resolution non- destructive examination (NDE) inspections found additional areas of corrosion around the base of the reactor vessel, which were identi- ÅML I[ _ITT \PQVVQVO IVL TWKITQbML
pitting corrosion.
NACE International, Vol. 51, No. 3