this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
441 points (98.0% liked)

Asklemmy

44149 readers
1340 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] rodbiren@midwest.social 81 points 6 months ago (5 children)

A whole bunch of welds in nuclear reactors are visually inspected using cameras duct taped onto the end of incredibly long poles which also get duct taped together. This would be the inside of BWR plants near the fuel and jet pumps. There is also an "art" to moving the cameras and poles around to get the shots you need. And if you get stuck the talented people know how to get you unstuck. There are also cameras just duct taped to ropes that the camera handler "swims" to certain spots.

Don't get me wrong, we have cool ultrasonic inspecting robots as well, but I was absolutely blown away by what visual inspection looked like in practice.

PS: The high dose fields make the camera look like it is being blasted with colorful confetti because of the high energy particles bombarding the camera module.

[โ€“] NerdsGonnaNerd@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Truely facinating! :)

How do you get the stick or rope into the high dose areas? Or do you use the robots for that?

[โ€“] rodbiren@midwest.social 4 points 6 months ago

It just sort of sinks down. You have two ways of manipulation, the cable the camera uses for power and data and the attached rope. Between those two you sort of puppeteer/swim it into place. It actually works out pretty good and some people are real pro at it.

load more comments (3 replies)