Equipment for external testing of pressure vessels, in particular nuclear reactor pressure vessels

摘要

A remotely- operated manipulator for external inspection of pressure vessels, esp. nuclear power station vessels, comprises a movable arrangement of rails to be installed between the outer face of the vessel and the surrounding concrete wall and a travelling system with inspection heads to run on the rails. The movable inspection heads are mounted on a trolley, which is driven along the movable rail by a flexible, push-pull cable which is fed down the rail from above out of a hollow storage box or cassette which can be moved around on the pile cap to points above the various inspection locations. This cassette contains the drive or push-pull mechanism for the flexible cable; the guide rail is fixed in an anti-twist manner throughout its length. The movable trolley pref. has a pivotal arm, which pneumatic drive, its pivoting direction being longitudinal to the trolley. Television inspection cameras are also mounted on the trolley. For all kinds of pressure vessel inspection. The flexibility of the arrangement enables the inspection heads to reach all points of the wall of the vessel even in an extremely constricted annular surrounding space with very few access points.