A New Underwater Robot for Crack Welding in Nuclear Power Plants

In this paper, a new underwater robot for crack welding has been developed which can realize crack welding with high stability and accuracy on walls of the spent fuel pools (SFPs) in nuclear power plants. Multi-thrusters with vector distribution are ultilized to minimize interferences which make the underwater robot attach on the bottom of SFP steadily. Moreover, the underwater welding system is optimized to achieve high quality welding performance. Experimental results show that the underwater robot can achieve highly accurate crack welding. As a result, the underwater robot holds great practicality and utility in the application of underwater crack-welding in nuclear power plants and other underwater scenarios.