Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology

In this study, the maintenance process by the servo manipulator has been developed for the parts of the equipment, which are unable to reach out by the Master-Slave Manipulator(MSM) in a hot cell. To do this, a virtual mock-up is implemented using the virtual prototyping technology. Using this mock-up, the workspace of the manipulators in the hot cell and the operator';s view through the wall-mounted lead glass have been analyzed. In addition, the path planning of the servo manipulator using the collision detection function of the virtual mock-up has been established. From these, the maintenance process for the parts of the equipment, which are located at the outside of the MSM';s workspace using the servo manipulator has been proposed and verified through the graphic simulation. It is revealed that the proposed remote maintenance process of the equipment can effectively be used in the real hot cell operation. It is also believed that the implemented virtual mock-up of the hot cell can effectively be applied in analyzing the various hot cell operation and enhancing the reliability and safety in a hot cell remote handling for the spent fuel management.

Keywords

Hot cell,Remote Handling,Master-Slave Manipulator,Servo manipulator,Virtual Mock-up,Graphic Simulation