Drone Inspection for Boiler Furnace and Internals
(Room Nile 3)
20 Sep 17
11:00 AM
-
12:30 PM
Tracks:
Track C - Optimizing Plant Operation
Drone inspection for boiler furnace and internals. Case study of drone inspection of 500 MWe CFB boilers in South Korea. Boiler inspection during shut down requires extensive scaffolding works which are time consuming and costly. Safety is always a concern when working on scaffolding in confined space. With drone inspection the need to stay inside of the boiler is minimized. In order to save time, costs, and improve safety during the shut down, a special drone inspection has been developed to review boiler panel wall, refractory and tube conditions. This allows visual inspection to of the full furnace area without scaffolding, and if inspection reveals good results, then time consuming and costly scaffolding is not needed at all. Should some problematic areas be seen, then scaffolding can be build only that location. In some boilers there can be extensive scaling/deposits that may fall down and cause a serious concern with safety. The Drone can be controlled from outside of the boiler without visual contact needed and no personnel are needed inside of the boiler during inspection. Preliminary visual inspection results can be seen immediately while performing the inspection and the final report will be ready before inspection team leaves the site. This paper will demonstrate the benefits and quality of the drone inspection during boiler inspections.