PPPO Paducah Site Robot Pipe Crawler Deployed
Pipe Crawling Robot improves efficiency in preparing former uranium enrichment process buildings for demolition at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Paducah Site.
With more than 20 miles of piping, and in some cases as large as 42 inches in diameter, the project team at the Paducah Site recently deployed a new tool to improve the efficiency of visually inspecting sections of piping using a robotic pipe crawler.
Piping can contain deposits from past gaseous diffusion operations. As a result, some sections of piping have to be removed as crews make progress on preparing the building for future demolition. Previously, identifying material in this piping required external scanning to pinpoint potential deposit locations for deactivation crews. This effort took many hours using manual cutting tools and additional safety measures to protect workers doing the inspections.
Recently deployed in over 1,000 linear feet of process piping, the robotic pipe crawler reduces the amount of time and effort to visually inspect the piping by using sophisticated detectors and a high-resolution camera to identify deposits. The project team has proven the effectiveness of the robotic pipe crawler using data from external scans in correlation with the data obtained by the equipment. As work continues with the robotic pipe crawler for visual inspection of piping, identifying potential deposits is expected to gain efficiency (up to five times faster when compared to manual inspections). It will also provide data necessary to identify more accurate deposit locations and promote worker safety during deactivation where more precise deposit removal activities are needed.
The design and process for the robotic pipe crawler came from lessons learned and shared technology, originally developed at the Portsmouth Site. Over the last year, the Paducah team made several enhancements to the robotic pipe crawler and developed methods with the equipment to ensure it can support deactivation of the C-333 Process Building.