S.A.Robotics

Client	Bechtel Power/Dominion Power, VA
Facility	various, initially North Anna Power Plant
Location	Louisa County, VA

S.A.Robotics designed and built a dual robotic Man Lift System to support Bechtel Power Corporation and facilitate replacement of reactor pressure vessel heads (RPVH) at North Anna Units 1 & 2 and at Surry Units 1 & 2.

S.A.Robotics’ Man Lift System includes twin 51’ towers with two articulated robotic arms and man lift baskets that provide access to the reactor containment vessel without obstructing other critical work areas. This allows workers to create and eventually repair a new containment opening for the removal and replacement of the RPVH.

To replace each reactor head, a large penetration (20’ x 29’) was water jet cut into the containment dome at each unit. Worker access was required to torch cut rebar exposed by the water jet as shown below. Following reactor head replacement, containment concrete was repaired by welding rebar back into place and then pouring concrete.

The capacity of the S.A.Robotics Man Lift System is 500 pounds live load at 20 feet full extension, with a vertical travel of 18 feet. The first CMRRS project was conceived, designed, seismically analyzed, fabricated, tested, shipped, installed and deemed operational in a total of eight weeks. This project was delivered with a firm fixed price on an extremely accelerated schedule in support of the plant outage.

The S.A.Robotics Man Lift System was used during the RPVH Replacement project at North Anna Unit 1, after Bechtel’s experience with Unit 2. The overall schedule improvement achieved at North Anna Unit 1 RPVH was 7 days over the 45 day project schedule. This 15% improvement was facilitated by use of the S.A.Robotics Man Lift System, which was used again at Surry Units 1 & 2 and is scheduled for use at Beaver Valley in 2005.