Robotic D&D: Smart Robots: (Decontamination and Dismantling)

International audienceProject' managers continually seek an ever-greater optimization of time between remote handling operations and those carried out manually; therefore, new technological solutions must be deployed. Robotics offers a great opportunity in this new field of technology to carry out, for example, samplings or remediation in hostile, cluttered surroundings. Teams in charge of dismantling at the CEA have therefore first defined robotizable functions. These functions have been assembled from existing technological blocks to arrive at robots which are operating today [RICAIII, patent: FR 2925702]. Lessons learned, particularly from experience with the RICA robot, have enabled the operating technical specifications to be fine-tuned. A new study phase has been launched applying the same principle of adapting existing, proven means. The growing role of robotics today is unquestioned. Led by research and the academic world; robots such as those equipped with wheels, tracks, feet or even helicopter rotors, are today accessible to the general public, particularly via broadening of the " open source " concept. Added to these we need tools able to manage large component deconstruction systems, like MAESTRO. Industrialization of such high-potential technological solutions has been aided by:-Easy use,-Increasing reliability,-Flexibility of " open source " solutions,-Widening skill networks, and therefore greater technical support-Lower costs. Decontamination and dismantling (D&D) projects must be able to meet a number of special demands, increasing the number of unit designs, their costs and delivery times. The complexity of dismantling works sites mean that each is a special case to be dealt with almost independently. Such a way of approaching these projects is not on the same wavelength as industry, with tool and method standardization. The answer to the challenge of operations in difficult environments is an ecosystem of functions, performed by a set of interconnected robots. The first step towards the construction of such robot teams is devoted to functions where strength is not necessary: investigating and clean-up in hostile environments. With this in mind, the CEA Marcoule teams have been given the objective of merging the strengthening commercial robotic world with the needs of D&D, and thus to improve the transversal use of the systems

Robot humanoïde d'inspection et d'assainissement en boite gants nucléaire

Ce travail présente une évaluation de l'opportu-nité d'utiliser des robots humanoïdes en milieu nucléaire. Ce projet a utilisé la plateforme du DaRwIn-OP pour lui apporter les modifications nécessaires afin d'en faire un opérateur d'intervention en milieu nucléaire. Les deux axes de travail ont consisté à équiper l'humanoïde d'un capteur de mesure radiologique et d'une commande des bras par une caméra en champ profond. Les tests réalisés montrent la capacité de réaliser des mesures radiologiques au moyen du capteur intégré et la réalisation de frottis pour évaluer la contamination d'un objet

An humanoid robot for inspections and cleaning tasks in nuclear glove box

This article presents an opportunity evaluation of the use of humanoid robots in a nuclear environment. The project worked on the DaRwIn-OP platform to assess and carry out the modifications the robot needed to enable it to perform as an intervention operator in a nuclear location. The study had two main lines, based on equipping the humanoid with a radiological measurement capture system and with an arm command system using a depth camera. The tests performed showed the robot's ability to make radiological measurements with the built in detector and to collect swipe samples to assess the contamination of an object

Les activités de démantèlement et de reprise des déchets se convertissent au numérique

Le démantèlement constitue un véritable enjeu pour la filière nucléaire. Il contribue à l’acceptabilité de celle-ci en démontrant la capacité à maîtriser tout le cycle de vie d’une installation nucléaire dès sa conception. Les projets de démantèlement et de reprise des déchets doivent répondre aux forts enjeux liés à la maîtrise des coûts et des délais tout en s’intégrant dans le respect des exigences réglementaires, de sûreté et environnementales. La maîtrise de ces enjeux passe notamment par la connaissance de l’état initial des installations et par la connaissance de la supply chain. Les nouveaux outils du numérique et leurs usages constituent une véritable opportunité pour la maîtrise de la performance industrielle et la structuration d’une filière dans ce domaine. Celle-ci possède déjà un terreau favorable. Panorama des actions en cours

The D&D of Nuclear Facilities: A Systemic Approach for Project Organization and Monitoring.

International audienceThe Decommissioning and Dismantling (D&D) of Nuclear Facilities is changing. Facing the increasing number of end-of-life facilities and the need to anticipate and ensure safety at any time, decision makers adopt a new industrial strategy. They focus on the process optimization and reproducibility to reduce costs and lead times of the projects which are both in progress or planned.The digitizing of the nuclear field, already started, has permitted a lot of technological improvements. For instance, mechatronics limit human attendance and exposure in radioactive cells, and computer science tools simplify data, knowledge and project management, especially thanks to feedback.Nevertheless, data associated to each nuclear facility are numerous, various, and are difficult to be coordinated and shared. The lifecycle of a nuclear facility is often very long with sometimes numerous configurations during the operation phase. Then data quality may decrease, mainly due to successive interpretations and the lack of traceability. In addition, the uncertainty of the data is significant because raw data may be incomplete and uncertainty rate is not always specified and explained. Data availability is not always assured. Some data are difficult to interpret, not digitized, untraced… Therefore, these issues make it difficult to develop complete and reliable digital mockups despite the use of some new technologies such as BIM (Building Information Modeling).Another strong issue comes from the main stakeholders' needs especially from those who are responsible for nuclear facilities during the main phases : design and construction, operation, decommissioning. Indeed, they do not have the same goals and missions, then they don't have the same requirements. While builders have a strong need for accurate devices' geometric informations, operators will need to know a lot more about the processes : power, flow rates, inputs, outputs, capacity… At last dismantlers need to have a detailed follow-up concerning the incidents and maintenance operations that occurred during the whole life of the facility : date of operation, objects concerned, details about changes… On the other hand they don't need for instance the same level of detail about geometric informations as builders. Thus it's not an easy task to monitor the design and operation data which are useful for the decommissioning.Finally the interoperability of processes, tools, and data is not guaranteed within the extended enterprise of the D&D.That's why it's important to adopt new methods at first to formalize and specified the whole set of requirements relevant to the field of D&D, then to structure its various components, and finally to ensure the coordination of its stakeholders. The aim is to guarantee the efficiency and the relevance of the solutions implemented, and meanwhile to facilitate and anticipate their evolution with regard to the new acquired knowledge. It's especially important to define the right type of raw data to be collected and traced for decommissioning projects.This is the purpose of a project carried out in France at the CEA (Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives). The CEA retained systemics as a support for the design and implementation of a method for the organization and monitoring of D&D projects. The systemic approach makes it possible to build a formalized representation of D&D into a set of coherent and consistent views : functional, physical, operational... These views build the D&D meta-model thanks to one or more Domain Specific Languages (DSL) which have to be ergonomic, shared, and understandable by the stakeholders concerned. Finally, the D&D meta-model will provide a framework for the design, implementation and maintenance of the D&D information system which is necessary for the overall control of D&D projects. The D&D meta-model then includes a dedicated ontological view which corresponds to the data governance model. It has to ensure the cross-knowledge management throughout the D&D extended enterprise.One objective for the method is to guarantee the quality of the desired end state of decommissioning. Waste management is an issue because it depends on strategic choices and operational decisions during decommissioning projects and before. The meta-model makes it possible to define in detail the constraints relating to each type of waste to be taken into account. These constraints are of different types : technical, logistical, regulatory, financial, organizational, human, safety and security, ethical, environmental… Knowledge management then allows to target and evaluate the relevant variables (life of waste, radioactivity, toxicity…) depending on these constraints. The method will then enable the evaluation of the various possible solutions for the management of the decommissioning products : conventional outlets (disposal, interim storage), reprocessing, transmutation. Finally it would allow a constant evaluation of strategy according to the involved requirements

The D&D of Nuclear Facilities: A Systemic Approach for Project Organization and Monitoring.

International audienceThe Decommissioning and Dismantling (D&D) of Nuclear Facilities is changing. Facing the increasing number of end-of-life facilities and the need to anticipate and ensure safety at any time, decision makers adopt a new industrial strategy. They focus on the process optimization and reproducibility to reduce costs and lead times of the projects which are both in progress or planned.The digitizing of the nuclear field, already started, has permitted a lot of technological improvements. For instance, mechatronics limit human attendance and exposure in radioactive cells, and computer science tools simplify data, knowledge and project management, especially thanks to feedback.Nevertheless, data associated to each nuclear facility are numerous, various, and are difficult to be coordinated and shared. The lifecycle of a nuclear facility is often very long with sometimes numerous configurations during the operation phase. Then data quality may decrease, mainly due to successive interpretations and the lack of traceability. In addition, the uncertainty of the data is significant because raw data may be incomplete and uncertainty rate is not always specified and explained. Data availability is not always assured. Some data are difficult to interpret, not digitized, untraced… Therefore, these issues make it difficult to develop complete and reliable digital mockups despite the use of some new technologies such as BIM (Building Information Modeling).Another strong issue comes from the main stakeholders' needs especially from those who are responsible for nuclear facilities during the main phases : design and construction, operation, decommissioning. Indeed, they do not have the same goals and missions, then they don't have the same requirements. While builders have a strong need for accurate devices' geometric informations, operators will need to know a lot more about the processes : power, flow rates, inputs, outputs, capacity… At last dismantlers need to have a detailed follow-up concerning the incidents and maintenance operations that occurred during the whole life of the facility : date of operation, objects concerned, details about changes… On the other hand they don't need for instance the same level of detail about geometric informations as builders. Thus it's not an easy task to monitor the design and operation data which are useful for the decommissioning.Finally the interoperability of processes, tools, and data is not guaranteed within the extended enterprise of the D&D.That's why it's important to adopt new methods at first to formalize and specified the whole set of requirements relevant to the field of D&D, then to structure its various components, and finally to ensure the coordination of its stakeholders. The aim is to guarantee the efficiency and the relevance of the solutions implemented, and meanwhile to facilitate and anticipate their evolution with regard to the new acquired knowledge. It's especially important to define the right type of raw data to be collected and traced for decommissioning projects.This is the purpose of a project carried out in France at the CEA (Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives). The CEA retained systemics as a support for the design and implementation of a method for the organization and monitoring of D&D projects. The systemic approach makes it possible to build a formalized representation of D&D into a set of coherent and consistent views : functional, physical, operational... These views build the D&D meta-model thanks to one or more Domain Specific Languages (DSL) which have to be ergonomic, shared, and understandable by the stakeholders concerned. Finally, the D&D meta-model will provide a framework for the design, implementation and maintenance of the D&D information system which is necessary for the overall control of D&D projects. The D&D meta-model then includes a dedicated ontological view which corresponds to the data governance model. It has to ensure the cross-knowledge management throughout the D&D extended enterprise.One objective for the method is to guarantee the quality of the desired end state of decommissioning. Waste management is an issue because it depends on strategic choices and operational decisions during decommissioning projects and before. The meta-model makes it possible to define in detail the constraints relating to each type of waste to be taken into account. These constraints are of different types : technical, logistical, regulatory, financial, organizational, human, safety and security, ethical, environmental… Knowledge management then allows to target and evaluate the relevant variables (life of waste, radioactivity, toxicity…) depending on these constraints. The method will then enable the evaluation of the various possible solutions for the management of the decommissioning products : conventional outlets (disposal, interim storage), reprocessing, transmutation. Finally it would allow a constant evaluation of strategy according to the involved requirements

A Model‐Based Approach to Design, Organize, and Monitor Dismantling and Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities

International audienceDismantling and Decommissioning (D&D) of nuclear facilities involves complex operations, requiring various activities’ many stakeholders to collaborate, and must address numerous significant constraints. The CEA (French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission), is conducting research to better pilot these operations, reduce their costs and timeframes, and improve overall performance. However, many issues remain, leading to studying and implementing, in the form of a method with appropriate tools, systemic principles and complex project and systems engineering. This method first formalizes and specifies the entire requirement set to consider. Second, based on these requirements, the method will enable the project team to structure, check, and demonstrate the project's coherence and feasibility from both the technological and organizational viewpoints. Lastly, the method should permit a constant D&D strategy and product management re‐evaluation, depending on the possible D&D project evolution. Developing demonstration software aims to provide the functionalities requested for the design, and future enterprise software implementation and maintenance, which should provide a complete D&D project Digital Mock‐Up being interoperable and connected to the tools and databases of the stakeholders’ information systems

Les concepts de l’usine du futur appliqués aux chantiers d’assainissement et de démantèlement

Le CEA en est convaincu, l’ensemble des concepts et méthodes de l’usine du futur peuvent s’appliquer aux chantiers d’assainissement et de démantèlement nucléaires, quelle que soit leur nature. À Marcoule, les équipes de l’organisme de recherche s’inspirent de l’industrie manufacturière pour modéliser toutes les étapes de la reprise au conditionnement des déchets radioactifs. En utilisant les technologies de l’industrie du futur – cobotique, réalité virtuelle, numérique pour l’analyse des données et l’interconnexion des systèmes, etc. – l’instrumentation est appelée à évoluer permettant de rendre les procédés plus sûrs et plus performants

Intégration du démantèlement lors de la conception des installations nucléaires

Le retour d’expérience acquis en assainissement-démantèlement des diverses installations nucléaires de typologies variées (usines du cycle, réacteurs, installations de R&D, accélérateurs…) a montré que certaines dispositions prises dès la conception (possibilité de démonter à distance, suppression de certaines impuretés susceptibles d’activation, protection des zones pouvant être contaminées, etc.) pouvaient simplifier notablement les opérations de démantèlement. Cette connaissance a été capitalisée récemment par l’AIEA et l’OCDE qui ont publié des recommandations correspondantes. Cet article résume ces recommandations et donne des exemples d’application dans certains projets en cours de conception en France