Inspection ROV for Nuclear Pressure Water Reactors

Abstract: This thesis was carried out at KTH in cooperation with the company WesDyne. The aim was to evaluate the possibility of using quadcopter technology in conjunction with visual inspection of nuclear reactor vessels. WesDyne already develops equipment for this purpose. Today the inspections are regulated by the ASME standard that sets the requirements of the inspections. The project began with a literature study to gain knowledge in the eld, followed by the development of a mathematical model. For greater advantage of the model it was chosen to build a prototype for verication. A number of eld tests were made to compare the model and prototype properties. The veried model was then used to carry out inspections simulated both by allowing a human operator but also a computer-based operator to control the model. Several tests were made in the model to evaluate dierent subsystems inuence. To evaluate real environment situations, which was not modeled, also eld tests were performed to investigate this. The conclusion drawn was that the quadcopter technology is possible to use to perform visual inspections in accordance with the ASME standard. However, there remains some work to done before reaching anished product. Development and verication of the mathematical model provides a good tool for future work.