These flexible robots are well suited for carrying out inspections on pipe systems, especially those that have a lot of bends, vertical sections and pipe branches. These robots are mainly used in the nuclear power industry, refineries, chemical plants, petrochemical plants, the offshore industry, gas pipelines, the beverage industry and all types of pipe lines up to 500m long.
Three drive elements provide a speed of up to 200 m/h in both horizontal and vertical directions and allow for effortless bend taking.
The integrated color camera really sees everything.
The robot's inspection head provides video inspection. The head has pan and tilt functions and an integrated color camera. With its high quality resolution, 10x optical zoom and its automatic and manual focusing, this camera is especially suited for use with in a diverse range of piping. On top of all this the inspection head possesses its own light source, a ring of 24 (or 48 when required) powerful LED. This provides excellent illumination for carrying out the necessary inspections work. The lighting is controlled by an infinitely variable switch.
Integrated laser for crack and corrosion classification
Inspector type 3000 (ID 130 mm) and larger also includes beside its pan and tilt camera head a laser for internal measurement and classification of defects and corrosion. With this special point laser it is possible to measure different kind of internal defects with a diameter of > 2 mm. The accuracy of the laser is better than 0.1 mm.
The settings of the laser are adjusted for different kinds of pipe material. This means that even wet or reflecting surfaces and also very uneven surfaces can be measured. Furthermore it is also possible to perform measurements in bends.
Laser software for profiling and pipe ovality measurement
This software displays all laser measurement data on a laptop. Therefore it is possible to calculate the inner profile of a pipe or to measure inner corrosion areas for example, display it graphically on a monitor and store it for further calculations in a data base.
Inspection robots for video and laser inspection posses three drive elements and an inspection head as standard. Each drive element is connected the other using flexible folding bellows and contains two DC motors.
The three drive elements provide a speed of up to 200 m/h in both horizontal and vertical directions and allow for bends and turns with a radius of 1.5 D to be easily taken.
Thanks to the special rubber coated wheels, which press against the inner wall of the pipe and can be adjusted for tension, even vertical inclines can be traveled. The rubber wheels are pressed against the wall using either compressed air or springs. This means that even root infested welding seams present no problem.
A special electronic cable or glass fiber cable controls the pipe robot and the color camera and transmits the video data to the monitor / DVD- recorder unit. The inspection robot and all other elements are controlled by a control unit and a laptop.
Features of the inspection robot:
The modular construction of the pipe robots allows for the addition of different operational elements, making it possible to carry out maintenance and inspection work.
Extra operations elements for performing maintenance tasks such as grinding and milling are also available. Ultrasound and eddy current sensors can be added for carrying out additional NDT inspection. These extremely flexible add-ons provide an exact analysis of faults with pipe work and often allow problems to be overcome in situ.