POWER April 2016 - 39

OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE
5. Snaking the pipes. GE Hitachi recently
rolled out the Surveyor ultrasonic inspection
robot for use inside buried piping.
The robot can navigate bends and elbows and
operate inside piping as narrow as 6 inches,
without requiring the piping to be drained.
Courtesy: GE Hitachi
when you do that, you increase the opportunity
to provide more data, and thus drive
down the costs of the service. "
If you're enthusiastic about the possibilities
of UASs and robots, you may be wondering
how soon they'll be able to go beyond
inspections to performing actual maintenance.
Robotic maintenance is still in the
early stages-robots designed by Toshiba
are being proposed for repairs at Fukushima
in the next few years-but as far as UASs,
Aecom's Amdur suggested that's still a ways
I am
IN CONTROL
With CIRCOR Energy General
& Severe Service Control Valves
solutions are growing small enough to allow
inspections of piping as narrow as 6
inches. GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH)
recently introduced what it calls the Surveyor,
a self-propelled, articulated robot
that can inspect filled, partially filled, and
dry piping from 6 inches to 48 inches in
diameter (Figure 5). The robot can negotiate
elbows and travel up to 1,000 feet from
its entry point.
GEH personnel tested the Surveyor at
the South Texas Project nuclear plant in
December 2014, and the robot was able to
inspect a length of buried pipe without requiring
modifications to the piping system.
An earlier version of robot has been used
for inspections of buried piping in the oil
and gas sector, but this was the first time it
was used at a nuclear plant.
According to the spokesman Jonathan Allen,
GEH is in discussions with several customers
about the Surveyor and is planning
for a deployment at a U.S. nuclear power
plant this spring.
Looking Ahead
Tim Saffold, Aecom's executive vice president
of joint unmanned systems and training
solutions, suggested that the drone industry is
poised for some dramatic gains in productivity
once the FAA settles on a clear regulatory
scheme for autonomous, beyond-line-of-sight
operation. " When we have the proper procedures
in place, " he said, " it's going to open
up a lot of opportunity. It's going to increase
the efficiency by an order of magnitude, and
April 2016 | POWER
Continuously Improving
Flow Control. Worldwide.
Leslie Controls Schroedahl RTK
www.circorenergy.com/controlvalves
CIRCLE 21 ON READER SERVICE CARD
www.powermag.com
39
From turbine bypass systems to balance of plant applications,
CIRCOR Energy offers a comprehensive portfolio of general
service to highly engineered severe service control valve
solutions that enable you to immediately improve efficiencies
and reduce long term maintenance costs.
Reliable, durable and engineered for performance, when it
comes to achieving plant productivity, think CIRCOR Energy.
Contact us today and we'll show you how you can be in total control.
off. " I think given the level of accuracy and
detail that is required for that, I don't think it
is going to happen any time soon. "
Still, it's coming at some point. Velicovich
said, " We get requests all the time " from clients
who have thought up some new role for
drones, even if there are limits to what can be
carried. As for UASs performing plant maintenance,
" I very much see the day when we
could be doing that. " ■
-Thomas W. Overton, JD is a POWER
associate editor.
http://www.circorenergy.com/controlvalves http://www.powermag.com
POWER April 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER April 2016
