Innovative Design of Replacement Device for Vulnerable Parts in the Nuclear Radiation Environment

Vigorously developing nuclear power is the main development direction of current renewable energy. In the nuclear environment, in order to avoid nuclear radiation damage to maintenance personnel and improve the efficiency of nuclear reaction, it is necessary and urgent to realize automatic replacement of vulnerable parts in the electron gun. As the key equipment for the generation and control of nuclear reactions in nuclear reactors, electron guns have been widely used in nuclear power plants of traveling wave reactors. However, the “high-voltage conductive ring” in electron guns is a vulnerable part. It is likely to cause nuclear reactor accidents when the vulnerable part is damaged. Automatic replacement of vulnerable parts is an important part of the entire maintenance equipment. Considering the entire maintenance equipment and the working environment, an innovative design process for vulnerable parts replacement is established. Under the guidance of the process, in order to ensure the continuity of a series of maintenance actions, the technical contradiction resolution theory is first used to conduct the overall analysis of the general direction to obtain the design layout. Then, the contradiction resolution theory and the object-field model analysis are utilized to get and improve the detailed design of the device mechanism. The theory of TRIZ can help us to get the overall mechanical structure design that meets the engineering requirements. The device is designed with a replacement part adjustment scheme to ensure the completion of the maintenance actions. Furthermore, the design provides a solution to the possible jamming phenomenon in the automatic maintenance process and achieves the maximum use efficiency of the storage and replacement of vulnerable parts.