Proposal and basic experiments of a piping inspection system based on water-jet

Abstract

After the incident in Fukushima nuclear plant, the access to several critical areas was damaged. Thus, the monitoring of them turned difficult. In order to keep tracking the status of these areas, it has been proposed to insert sensors through piping that is located nearby the element of interest. However, these pipelines have many restriction, like small diameter, changes of direction, elements that block access, etc. and none of the existing technologies have the capability of going through the piping while carrying the required sensors. In this paper we report a proposal of a new system, whose propulsion is based on water-jet. This device shows good possibilities to fulfill the requirements of carrying out the desired task. The design of this proposal aims to solve the limitations observed in the experiments done with a current technology, which are also described briefly. Basic tests done with the prototype developed are shown as well.