The automated control systems are used during the scheduled maintenance at the Novovoronezh NPP 7th power unit to control the quality of welded joints at the pipelines located in hard-to-reach places.

These were first tried at the Novovoronezh NPP back in 2019 during the scheduled maintenance of the 6th power unit. Currently, the automated control systems are fully deployed at the 7th power unit.

‘The usage of the automated control system helps us reduce the average amount of time our staff spends in the reactor shop three times as well as to examine the equipment that can be accessed for manual checks’, Alexey Kiselyov, head of metal non-destructive testing and technical control, said.

An operator welds an automated control system for visual remote control. The system automatically scans the welded joints without any human intervention. As a result, the staff receives high-resolution images with at 1 mm intervals. The information is then processed in labs. Other automated control systems for ultrasound and eddy current testing work in a similar fashion. The output is represented as a visualization of physical processes happening within the metal.

The VVER-1200 power units were the first ones to see widespread usage of automated control systems at NPPs. The Novovoronezh NPP 4th and 5th power units with VVER-440 and VVER-1000 reactors use these systems as well, although these are previous-generation ones. The new power units enjoy the cutting-edge systems with advanced technical parameters, better picture qualities and smaller intervals.