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Applications

Nuclear

Around thirty countries partially rely on nuclear energy for electricity production, including the United States, France, and Japan. In France, nuclear power represents a significant share of the national electricity supply.

Nuclear power plants use cooling systems supplied by rivers or seawater intakes. These hydraulic infrastructures include pipelines, intake tunnels, and basins that must undergo regular inspections to ensure their proper operation and safety.

Thanks to their compact size and high maneuverability, Subsea Tech mini-ROVs enable operators to inspect confined or difficult-to-access areas within cooling systems and nuclear facilities.

The portability, ease of deployment, and energy autonomy of these systems provide great flexibility in inspection planning and operations. ROVs can be easily transported from one site to another and deployed by a single operator.

Typical Applications

Subsea Tech solutions are used in the nuclear sector for missions such as:

  • inspection of nuclear power plant cooling systems

  • inspection of water intake structures and hydraulic tunnels

  • inspection of spent fuel cooling pools

  • inspection and cleaning of storage tanks or basins

  • recovery of sediments or waste in constrained environments

Cooling System Inspection

Cooling systems in nuclear power plants include water intake structures, pipelines, and hydraulic tunnels used to supply water to the facility.

These infrastructures must be inspected regularly to verify their structural integrity, detect potential deposits or obstructions, and ensure the proper operation of the cooling system.

Thanks to their compact size, Subsea Tech mini-ROVs can be deployed in confined environments and navigate through pipelines or tunnels that are difficult or impossible for humans to access.

Typical missions

  • visual inspection of water intake structures

  • inspection of water supply tunnels

  • inspection of hydraulic structures associated with cooling systems

Benefits

  • reduced costs and risks compared with diver inspections

  • greater flexibility in inspection planning

  • portability of equipment between sites

  • ability to perform inspections in constrained or irradiated environments

Storage Tank Inspection and Cleaning

Some nuclear facilities use tanks or silos designed for storing submerged sediments or radioactive waste.

Subsea Tech has developed a specialized ROV designed to recover radioactive sediments stored in silos at the AREVA La Hague facility. The vehicle is equipped with a high-power pump and a sludge decompaction system, as well as a ballast system that allows precise control of the ROV’s altitude in the water column and the contact pressure applied to the sediments during recovery operations.

Typical missions

  • recovery of radioactive sediments

  • cleaning of storage tanks or silos

  • visual inspection of internal structures

Benefits

  • reduced risks for operators

  • improved safety of maintenance operations

  • robotic intervention in difficult-to-access environments


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