High-tech underwater maintenance increases safety, reduces costs
This article describes how, using new inspection technologies and highly-trained divers, diving contractors provide much-needed services to power plants. It is a virtual certainty that any power generating facility using cooling water for its processes will eventually require underwater maintenance. Since the first days of large-scale electric generation, underwater maintenance projects have involved some form of diving activity. In the days of the hard-hat divers, the technology was primitive and the hazards even more significant. Consequently, project engineers would plan diving operations very carefully, and diving was viewed as a method of last resort. Fortunately, improvements in diving technology have removed much of the worry over worker safety and cost issues. Power plants routinely employ independent diving companies to provide maintenance, repair and inspection services. Nuclear fuel pool diving, cooling tower cleaning and maintenance, dam surveillance, and intake screen maintenance and inspection are just a few of the jobs carried out by specialized diving contractors.
- OSTI ID:
- 89622
- Journal Information:
- Power Engineering (Barrington), Journal Name: Power Engineering (Barrington) Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 99; ISSN 0032-5961; ISSN POENAI
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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