NEWS |
round up
RADWASTE
GERMANY’S FEDERAL MINISTRY for Environment, Nature Conservation & Nuclear Safety (BMUV) has cancelled plans for a centralised low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste logistics centre at the former Würgassen NPP site. Citing “legal and planning risks”, BMUV said the project was unlikely to be implemented on time and was therefore not economical.
US-BASED DEEP Isolation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Curio to advance development of technologies for disposal of high-level nuclear waste. Curio and Deep Isolation will collaborate and exchange critical information for the use of Deep Isolation’s Universal Canister System and patented directional drilling solution for deep borehole disposal.
D&D LOWER SAXONY’S MINISTRY for the Environment, Energy & Climate has granted approval to PreussenElektra to begin dismantling the 1360 MWe pressurised water reactor at Grohnde NPP in Germany, which was closed down in December 2021 in line with Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear power.
THE STATE NUCLEAR Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine has extended by six years the licence relating to dismantling the most unstable parts of the shelter hastily constructed over unit 4 of the Chornobyl NPP destroyed in the 1986 explosion. Work to dismantle and stabilise the sarcophagus is currently conducted inside the New Safe Confinement enclosing the damaged facility.
ORANO USA, ASSISTED by Netherlands- based heavy lifting company Mammoet, have completed removal of the sectioned 540-tonne reactor pressure vessel (RPV) at unit 3 of the shutdown Crystal River NPP in Florida. The removal of the RPV is part of the accelerated decommissioning of the facility.
ADVANCED REACTORS THE US NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission (NRC) has directed staff to issue a construction permit to Kairos Power for the company’s proposed Hermes non-power test reactor to be built at the Heritage Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The permit authorises Kairos to build a 35 MWth reactor that would use molten salt to cool the reactor core.
Russia
Reactor dome installed at Kursk-II The dome of the outer containment shell (NZO) has been installed at unit 2 of the Kursk-II NPP. The dome is the last part of the NZO. Initially, the sixth tier was installed – the lower component of the dome – a large structure weighing more than 215 tonnes. Two days later, the upper part the dome itself, weighing 195 tonnes, with a diameter of 34.7 metres and a wall thickness of 1.5 metres was put in place. The height of the reactor building is now 64.9 metres, and will reach 65.4 metres. Earlier in December, the VVER-TOI reactor
pressure vessel (RPV) was installed at unit 2. Installation of the RPV marked the active stage of installation of all primary circuit equipment signalling the countdown to commissioning. The equipment was installed ahead of the construction schedule. “The construction project of Kursk-II provides
for two protective shells of the reactor building – internal and external,” said Kursk NPP Director Alexander Uvakin. “The internal one prevents the release of radioactive substances into the environment in emergency situations. The external one, together with the internal one, serves as physical protection from natural and man-made external influences, including earthquakes, hurricanes and plane crashes.” Double containment is a distinctive feature
of NPPs with VVER-1200 and VVER-TOI reactors. The distance between the inner and outer shells is 1.5 metres. The installation of each tier of both shells was preceded by the assembly of the component elements, at a special site near the reactor building. Construction of the internal containment shell (VZO) was completed at the end of December last year. Oleg Shperle, Vice-President of Atomstroyexport JSC and project director for the construction of Kursk-II said assembly of the two parts of the dome was completed by specialists in 86 days. Kursk II will replace the currently operating
Kursk NPP, which comprises four ageing RBMK reactors (one of which is already closed). Units 1&2, currently under construction, will have VVER-TOI reactors – a development of the VVER- 1200 reactor design. The VVER-TOI has increased power and improved technical and economic indicators, as well as increased resistance to extreme external influences. Currently work is being carried out at 156 facilities on the site..
United Kingdom Robots flock for decommissioning UK engineers from University of Glasgow, University of Manchester, Bristol Robotics Laboratory and Heriot-Watt University are developing the Symbiotic Multi-Robot Fleet (SMuRF) system, which could help with NPP decommissioning. The system enables wheeled, four-legged and airborne robots to collaborate and complete difficult or hazardous tasks supervised by a single human supervisor as they share sensor data and combine their abilities.
10 | January 2024 |
www.neimagazine.com
SMuRFs could offer authorities, regulators and industry a safer, faster method of monitoring nuclear facilities, as well as opening up new opportunities for the maintenance of engineering infrastructure in challenging environments. A paper, ‘Lessons Learned: Symbiotic
Autonomous Robot Ecosystem for Nuclear Environments’, recently published in the journal IET Cyber-Systems and Robotics outlines how researchers deployed the SMuRF in a practical demonstration at the Robotics & Artificial Intelligence Collaboration (RAICo) facility in Cumbria. RAICo is a collaboration between the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), Sellafield Ltd and the University of Manchester. The research was supported by funding from the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). During the demonstration, the SMuRF
successfully completed an inspection mission in a simulated radioactive storage facility. The robots’ ability to collaborate is the result of a sophisticated computer system developed by the researchers, which they call a ‘cyber physical system (CPS). The CPS is capable of communicating with
up to 1,600 sensors, robots and other digital and physical assets in near to real-time. It also allows robots with very different abilities and operating systems to work together and update the human operator. The data collected and processed by the CPS enables the creation of a 3D digital twin of a real space. That allows the SMuRF to navigate around the space and carry out tasks with minimal oversight, while providing human operators with a wealth of data via a specially- designed digital dashboard. Combining the robots’ abilities allowed them
to complete a series of tasks often applied to radiation monitoring. The robots collaborated to map the environment, creating a 3D digital twin of the space using their onboard sensors, which was supported by further mapping from an aerial drone. Boston Dynamics’ Spot fetched tools for
closer scans, while wheeled robots Scout and CARMA mapped radiation levels. The CARMA robot successfully detected a simulated spill underneath a waste barrel. Daniel Mitchell of the University of Glasgow’s James Watt School of Engineering, the paper’s corresponding author, said: “The robots we programmed and designed in this prototype SMuRF each have their own unique abilities and limitations, as well as their own operating systems. During the deployment of the SMuRF at RAICo, we were able to show how well the robots can work together and how the digital twin we built can provide remarkable situational awareness for human operators.” David Flynn, Professor in Cyber Physical
Systems at the University of Glasgow, co-author of the paper, added: “The next step for our research is to integrate a wider range of robots in our fleets, with even more diverse abilities.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45
