A first in Zhejiang! Wall-climbing robots give spherical tanks a "health check"

Source： 2026-07-06

At 9:30 a.m. on December 22, inside the spherical tank area of Juhua Group in Quzhou, Zhejiang Province, a wall-climbing robot weighing about 30 kilograms—looking somewhat like a robotic vacuum cleaner—began inspecting the crisscrossing weld seams on the inner wall of a 5,000-cubic-meter tank.

Outside the tank, operator Xing Xiangwei sat at the ground control station, keeping a close eye on the screen while maneuvering the controls with both hands. Meanwhile, inspector Wang Tao carefully reviewed the real-time footage fed back by the robot to ensure all inspection metrics met the required standards.

This marks the first time a robot has been deployed to inspect the inner walls of spherical tanks in Zhejiang Province, and only the second successful practice of its kind in China.

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Challenges of Traditional Inspection Methods
To ensure the safe operation of equipment, spherical tanks typically undergo mandatory inspections every three years, both internally and externally. However, this task has always faced numerous challenges. Traditional inspection methods rely heavily on erecting scaffolding and manual climbing. Working at heights often creates visual and operational blind spots, and the number of workers allowed inside confined spaces is strictly limited. As a result, traditional inspections suffer from long preparation cycles, high costs, and low efficiency. Furthermore, the safety risks associated with working at heights and in confined spaces are prominent, and the complex curved structures of the tanks easily create blind spots that are hard to inspect.

Cracking the Code with Collaborative Solutions
To tackle this challenge, in early November this year, the Quzhou Institute of Special Equipment Inspection and Testing set up a dedicated technical task force. They teamed up with Luke Testing Technology (Shandong) Co., Ltd. and the Zhejiang Academy of Special Equipment Science to organize cross-disciplinary experts for multiple on-site surveys and plan evaluations. After comparing and discussing over a dozen proposals based on technical feasibility, safety, inspection coverage, and efficiency, and following repeated simulations and tests, they finally settled on a collaborative approach: using an "automatic wall-climbing magnetic particle inspection robot" paired with an "automatic grinding robot."

The Edge of Wall-Climbing Robots
Once debugging and preparations were complete, the wall-climbing robot was officially put into operation. It is expected to complete the fully automated inspection of 720 meters of weld seams inside the tank in just 4 days. The robot can operate continuously and stably for 24 hours, achieving 100% coverage of blind spots that are difficult for humans to reach, thereby reducing the risk of missed inspections. Since personnel no longer need to enter the tank and can simply control the robot remotely with high precision, the dangers of working at heights and in confined spaces are completely avoided. Moreover, the inspection quality is no longer affected by human fatigue, ensuring highly reliable data.

A Significant Boost in Efficiency
It is understood that inspecting a large 5,000-cubic-meter spherical tank using traditional methods takes about 15 days just to erect and dismantle scaffolding. Add in the manual grinding and inspection of the weld seams, and the total cycle stretches to about 30 days. In contrast, using the grinding and inspection robots reduces the entire process—from preparation to completion of all tasks—to just about 8 days, marking a significant leap in efficiency.

A Milestone for Digital Empowerment
Safety is the lifeline of the chemical industry. As one of the important birthplaces of domestic fluoro-silicon new material industries, the Gaoxin Area of Quzhou Smart Manufacturing New City currently has about 30 spherical tanks in service. The Quzhou Institute of Special Equipment Inspection and Testing has always focused on ensuring the safe operation of special equipment and reducing corporate costs. The successful application of robot inspections this time not only verifies the reliability of intelligent inspection technology but also demonstrates the institute's systematic capabilities in solution design, technology selection, and risk prevention.

Guo Weican, Chief Engineer of the Zhejiang Academy of Special Equipment Science, noted, "This is the first successful practice in the province of using digitally empowered robots for the periodic inspection of spherical tanks. It provides an important demonstration for the digital and intelligent upgrading of the special equipment inspection industry across the province."

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