A robot will crawl inside pressurised industrial tanks to inspect them for cracks and corrosion without shutting them down or venting their contents. Pressure vessels—the steel tanks used in oil refineries, nuclear plants, and chemical facilities—must be inspected regularly to prevent catastrophic failures. Current practice forces operators to halt production, depressurise the tank, drain and store hazardous fluids, and send human inspectors inside. This process can cost over £1 million in just a few days, and the confined, toxic environments have caused numerous injuries and deaths. Because humans cannot enter a pressurised vessel without breaking containment, the only safe alternative is robotics. The CHIMERA platform enters through a bolt-on headworks, cleans sludge with a vacuum, then uses an ultrasonic phased array to scan for flaws. A slender robotic arm can perform repairs in tight spaces. The consortium includes experts in robotics, AI, nuclear safety, and oil and gas, with direct industry links to bring the system to market. If successful, CHIMERA could eliminate the need for costly shutdowns and remove humans from one of the most dangerous inspection jobs in heavy industry—quietly making the UK’s energy and chemical infrastructure safer and cheaper to maintain.
View original technical description
Pressure vessels are considered safety critical infrastructure and are present across many industries such as oil and gas, nuclear, petrochemical etc. Assuring the safety of these ageing assets is increasingly important for these industries as there have been many fatal failures in the past. Internal pressure vessel inspection has significant cost and health and safety risk associated with it and is required at specific intervals by industry codes/standards. In order to carry out internal inspection, the operator must; stop production, depressurise, store extracted fluid, vent etc. The total cost associated with these activities can easily exceed £1M within a few days depending on the production facility. More importantly, these tasks are currently carried out by humans and the hazardous environments have led to many injuries/fatalities. It is not possible for humans to carry out inspection on these assets without breaking containment, the only way to do so, is via robotics and artificial intelligence. CHIMERA is a semi-autonomous robotic platform for internal pressure vessel inspection, repair and maintenance. It will be deployed into the pressure vessel without breaking containment via an innovative bolt on headworks. It will be equipped with a sludge/sediment vacuum to clean the pressure vessel, an ultrasonic phased array inspection system and a slender arm for inspection and repair in confined spaces. To successfully deliver this, a consortium of experts has been formed with capabilities in robotics, inspection, navigation, in situ repair, AI, civil nuclear and oil and gas. There are close ties between the consortium and the targeted industries, providing a direct route to market/exploitation. CHIMERA represents a clear technological innovation for the UK pressure vessel inspection market with a major growth opportunity for the SME supply chain in the consortium.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know