Carlsbad, California – Diakont, a leading high-tech engineering and manufacturing company, recently opened a new engineering center in the San Diego, California suburb of Carlsbad, to support the company’s continued growth and to leverage the high-technology talent pool in the area.

Atlanta, Georgia, May 23, 2018— Diakont received an innovation award for robotic buried pipe inspection during this year’s Nuclear Energy Assembly, hosted by the Nuclear Energy Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. The Nuclear Energy Institute is the nuclear energy industry’s policy organization.

Diakont’s safety-related digital control systems were recently integrated into new nuclear plants and in Q4 2017 started initial operations. First fuel was successfully loaded at the new nuclear generating stations at Rostov (Unit 4) on December 6, 2017 and at Leningrad (Block 2, Unit 1) on December 12, 2017, marking the beginning of startup operations at these new PWR (VVER) generating units.

Diakont’s underwater robotic decontamination service was featured in the September-October issue of the Nuclear Plant Journal as a dose saving, more efficient solution. Diakont used the robotic decon solution to clean and decontaminate the refueling cavity, dryer and separator pools for a North American nuclear power plant.

San Diego, CA – Diakont, a leading provider of high-technology robotic solutions and services for the energy generation and oil and gas industries, was awarded a California Competes Tax Credit by the California Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development ("GO-Biz"). The income tax credit was granted in consideration of Diakont’s ongoing commitment to grow and invest in its California-based operations.

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading provider of refueling outage tooling and services to the nuclear industry, successfully provided underwater robotic decontamination services on a nuclear power plant’s refueling cavity and dryer-separator pool in Spring 2017 using a new tool system. Historically, nuclear plant operators have conducted cleaning and decontamination of these surfaces manually, after draining water from the space. However manual decon is slow, and can result in excessive personnel dose exposure. Diakont’s underwater robotic decon services present a vast improvement over manual decon because it reduces personnel dose exposure, reduces radwaste, doesn’t impact plant chemistry, and doesn’t risk inadvertently spreading contamination. Also Diakont’s decon method avoids the risk of personnel injury and component damage associated with hydrolasing. And by performing the decon robotically while the cavities are flooded, in many cases the critical path outage schedule can be shortened.  

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading supplier of high-tech solutions for the nuclear industry, has begun supply of the new Foreign Object Removal System (FORS) for nuclear power plant foreign object search and retrieval (FOSAR) requirements.  The FORS tooling is comprised of a gripper system with an integrated Diakont D40 camera that provides detail and fidelity for extractions in air and underwater environments with dose rates up to 10⁶ Rads/hr.

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading provider of high-tech solutions for the nuclear industry, has developed a 360 Fuel Inspection System for improving the safety and efficiency of spent fuel inspections. This improved inspection solution utilizes four Diakont D40 cameras mounted on a ring assembly. Diakont D40 camera systems are the proven industry standard for radiation-tolerant visual inspection equipment, making them the ideal solution for fuel inspection applications. The 360 Fuel Inspection System allows all four sides of fuel assemblies to be inspected simultaneously, with zero impact to critical path. In addition, this technology can be customized to meet individual plant needs.

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading provider of high-tech solutions for the nuclear industry, has developed an innovative approach for providing high resolution inspections of Torus coatings within BWR nuclear power plants using remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). This improved inspection method eliminates many of the problems associated with the current technique of using divers to manually perform visual inspections. Diakont’s BWR Torus inspection services significantly reduce inspection costs, duration, schedule risk, and personnel dose exposure, while increasing nuclear safety.

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading provider of high-tech solutions for the nuclear industry, has begun supply of new D40 console systems which furnish all of the components required to complete visual inspections in high rad environments, including the best-in-class D40 rad hardened camera along with a rack-mounted camera control unit, a monitor, a digital video recorder (DVR), a microphone, and a handheld remote controller, all integrated into a rugged enclosure.

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading supplier of high-tech solutions for the nuclear industry, has begun supply of the new MicroCam utility camera for monitoring reactor maintenance activities in areas with radiation levels exceeding those found in High Radiation Areas (HRA).  The MicroCam is a compact color video camera with integrated lighting that provides detail and fidelity in air and underwater environments with dose rates up to 100,000 rads/hr.

St. Petersburg, Russia – Diakont, a leading nuclear industry high-tech solutions provider, recently completed a major repair of the Leningrad nuclear power plant.  The 925 MWe reactor had been offline since May 2012 because of problems related to deformations in the graphite blocks within the core that comprise its moderator.

San Diego, California – Diakont has begun supply of new “Ultra-Rad” Tubes for the D40 camera system, for use when conducting visual inspections in areas of extremely high radiation. The Ultra-Rad Tube supports the most demanding applications by combining Diakont’s best-in-class video image quality, with the ability to operate cameras in gamma fields as high as 3*10⁶ Rads/hr.

Diakont recently supplied a complete state-of-the-art radiation-tolerant manipulator system for the remote robotic removal of Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV) test specimens.

Test specimens are housed within containers that are welded to the inner diameter (ID) surface of the RPV. To retrieve them, it is necessary to perform precision cuts of the welds that fasten the containers to the RPV.

Unlike previous now-obsolete solutions, Diakont’s new manipulator implements technology that eliminates ingress of welding slag and other foreign material into the RPV, eliminating the requirement to conduct extra FOSAR operations at the bottom of the RPV.

San Diego, California – Diakont, a leading provider of refueling services and tooling to the nuclear industry, is now performing underwater cleaning and decontamination of reactor refueling cavities while flooded, using advanced robotic tooling. Historically, plant operators completed cleaning and decontamination of these surfaces manually during refueling outages. However, this method is a slow and less effective process that can result in excessive personnel dose exposure. Diakont’s robotic cleaning and decontamination services also outperform competitor robotic solutions. Featuring unmatched maneuverability through the use of thrusters to fly/swim when navigating to difficult-to-reach locations, Diakont’s robotic cleaning and decontamination services deliver considerably safer and more efficient results that can reduce both personnel dose exposure and critical path schedule duration.