Concrete Inspection in Remote Areas with Robotic Arms
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
The use of non-destructive examination (NDE) to assess the conditions of concrete structures has received extensive attention in recent years. NDE analysis techniques are used to evaluate the properties of materials and to ensure the integrity of structures without causing damages to them. NDE inspection is often performed manually by certified technicians, however in remote and high hazard environments this is impossible or undesirable for human safety. Development of remote and robotic technologies to perform these essential inspections is of interest to the DOE EM complex due to its aging infrastructure and hazardous environments. This goal of this seedling was to develop techniques to remotely examine inaccessible concrete structures and to evaluate results collected remotely to those obtained by human hand. Additionally, two promising state of the art NDE instruments were identified to be used for the characterization to include the new Proceq Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) which generates results in 3D using Augmented Reality. A test bed was built to develop and evaluate deployment techniques of the NDE instruments with a robotic arm. Concrete test forms simulating the rough concrete surfaces, strength, composition and potential structural defects that can be found at our DOE EM facilities were built for the examination. Initial NDE instrumentation data collection has been performed on the concrete test forms.
- Research Organization:
- Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Environmental Management (EM); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC09-08SR22470
- OSTI ID:
- 1568803
- Report Number(s):
- SRNL-STI-2019-00606; TRN: US2100488
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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