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Conference Article: The ISIS operation: Robotics repair work on the CHINON A3 natural uranium, carbon dioxide cooled, graphite moderated reactor

Abstract

After describing the upper internal support structures of the CHINON A3 reactor, the problems resulting from their degradation due to corrosion and to the difficulties of the ISIS operation are presented here. The repair method is as follows: all tools and repair parts reach the working area by the feeding-pipes drilled through the 7 m thick concrete vessel surrounding the reactor core. The robots handle into the reactor, the tool heads and the repair parts which are automatically positioned and welded around the corroded structure, thus restoring the support of measurement devices. The parts are either linked together or to the existing structure by means of 2 studs of 12 mm in diameter. The different phases to sort out a problem are: in-core topography, reconforming of the full-scale mock-up with the repair area, learning on this mock-up and in-core repair. The technical specificities of the robots used are the following: they have an 11 meter long, 0.22 meter across telescopic mast with jointed arms reaching a radius of 2.7 m. Then the useful load is 70 daN and the repeatability 0.1 mm. Different tool heads can be handled by the robot: telemeter and laser reconstruction: it allows to locate the in core points and to materialize them on the mock-up by a laser crossed-beams locating technique. Scouring: it cleans the corroded parts of the structures before welding. Welding: it allows the parts handling and the carried studs welding. Screwing. Tensile test: carried out when the stud welds are defective. A high level computerized control system is organized around a central unit which calculates the displacements of robots and synchronises the actions of different tools by communicating with several local units. A 100,000 hour designing, a 200,000 hour building and assembling and a 450,000 hour operating on working area were necessary to repair 15 out of the 102 corroded structures by fitting and welding 205 repair parts.

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Reference:

Technical committee meeting on design requirements, operation and maintenance of gas-cooled reactors. San Diego, CA (USA). 21-23 Sep 1988

International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna (Austria). International Working Group on Gas-Cooled Reactors

IWGGCR--19, pp:132-140