Seung-Hyun Byun

Development of Automatic Cleaning Robot for Live-line Insulators

A new cleaning robot system for double tension insulator strings was developed to prevent an insulator failure, which can have severe effects on national security as well as national industry and economy. The robot moves along the insulator string using the clamps installed on its two moving bodies. Especially, unlike the existing cleaning robots using jets of water or water/air, the robot system adopts dry cleaning method using a rotating brush and a circular motion guide.

Implementation of Control System for Insulator Cleaning Robot

It is very important to maintain power transmission lines without a failure for stable power service without interruption. To prevent reduction of the insulation resistance of insulators, it is required to clean the insulators periodically. Working environment using jets of water by maintenance personnel is dangerous because insulators are located in a high place with a high voltage. Due to the working environment described above, cleaning efficiency and precision is low. To overcome such difficulties, an insulator cleaning robot has been developed. In this paper, the control system for insulator cleaning robot is designed and implemented in consideration of the characteristics of the robot and the insulators, and the validity of the implemented control system is shown via experiments

Development of Thimble Handling System for Neutron Flux Mapping

The in-core neutron flux mapping system in a pressurized water reactor yields information on the neutron flux distribution in the reactor core at selected core locations by means of movable detectors. The obtained data are used to verify the reactor core design parameters. The detector cables run through guide tubes (thimbles), and typically thirty six to fifty thimbles are allocated in the reactor depending on the number of fuel assemblies. For reactor operation, the thimbles are inserted into nuclear fuel assemblies through conduits connected from the bottom of the reactor vessel to a seal table. During the plant refueling outage period, the thimbles are withdrawn up to 4 meters from the seal table, the height of fuel assemblies. Thimble handling work has been performed by maintenance personnel. Manual handling efficiency is low due to narrow and high-radiation working environment around the seal table. Besides, manual force exerted on the thimbles is not constant and usually does not have unique direction, which may cause serious damage to the thimbles. To overcome these difficulties, automatic handling system for in-core neutron flux mapping thimbles has been developed, and the validity of the developed system is shown via experiments