Public Domain Picture: WSU students help design telescoping camera platform to take pics in Hanford's underground storage tanks

Greg Bogan (left), Columbia Energy Environmental Services, oversees work on a telescoping camera platform designed by Washington State University mechanical engineering students Melissa Street, Jared Rixon, Ryan Breezee, Ben Revard, Gladwyn D’Souza, and Chris Mentzer. Two other students working on the project are not pictured in this photo. As part of their senior project, the students are helping design a telescoping arm and camera system to take pictures inside Hanford’s underground storage tanks. The students worked alongside mentors from the Department of Energy’s tank farms contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), on a budget of $10,000 provided by Columbia Energy Environmental Services (CEES). They brainstormed ideas, developed design specs, ordered parts, and assembled a unit into a functional prototype that they tested at the CEES Test Facility over Thanksgiving break. The design consisted of a riser-mountable platform with a 24-foot long telescoping arm that lowers a camera into the tank to provide better photos for inspecting tank integrity. The platform would be mounted on a trailer, taken from farm to farm, and could even be improved to conduct routine tank-integrity inspections.

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Cees, Departmentofenergy, Doe, Em, Environmentalmanagement, Hanford, Officeofriverprotection, Orp, Prototype, Richland, Telescopingcameraplatform, Washingtonstateuniversity, Wsu

June 8, 2014