Online Robotic Forebay Cleaning In Power Plants
Power plants have an extensive recirculation system of cooling water consisting of large cooling towers in the form of Natural draft cooling towers to cross current and counter current type cooling towers, which are further connected by open air channels that leads to the forebay and pumping systems. Silt / mud deposition in forebay causes severe operation problems in the cooling system which lead to frequent choke ups and pump damage. It is required for the plant manager to clean the forebay time and again to reduce the occurrence of such operational issues due to accumulation of sludge at the bottom of forebay.
Conventional method of forebay cleaning would require shutdown of all the cooling towers that are linked to the channel-forebay system which leads to heavy production losses or having a DIVER enter the forebay under running condition for removal of the sludge. A Man entry for such an application is not only a highly risky operation as huge pumping systems are installed in the forebay area but also an inefficient operation as the DIVER has limitations to remove the deposited sludge at the bottom.