Fury: Robotic In-Situ Inspection/Condition Assessment System for Underground Storage Tanks

摘要

The Code of Federal Regulations (40 CFR 280-281) required all underground storage tanks (USTs) containing petroleum products to be brought into compliance to prevent environmental contamination through leakage. Replacing all older USTs can, in some cases, be prohibitively expensive. One alternative to requiring that tanks pass a precision tightness test is to retrofit USTs with cathodic protection for continued use. This report introduced a remote, robotic UST condition inspection/assessment system named Fury, developed to meet the need for more cost-effective and reliable tank condition assessment methods. Fury is a robotic crawler that moves inside a UST by means of magnetic wheels. It includes 90-degree transition arms for robot positioning on tank end caps and has a central pivot to allow for full motion of the steering head. The robot is designed to fit through an existing small-diameter pipe, which mitigates invasive tank entry during assessment and allows for non-destructive evaluation. Control of the Fury is accomplished through a tether attached to the rear of the robot. Fury uses ultrasonic transducers on a sensor sled to obtain approximately 90,000 wall thickness measurements per hour at over 95% of cylindrical-wall or end-cap locations. (5 tables, 12 figures, 13 refs.)