Moving humans away from harm
The first-of-a-kind robotic system we have created for the remote handling of Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) at Sellafield is a landmark project for RED and for our clients. By some margin the biggest project RED has ever undertaken, the DPaCC system marks a major step forward into the future for RED and the nuclear decommissioning industry.
From the moment we joined the Tiger Team that initiated the project, the key objective has been to help Sellafield achieve its goal of moving humans away from harm and when handling hazardous waste this means getting hands out of gloveboxes.
The idea behind this gamechanging system is elegantly simple – the integration of a modified industrial robot within a modular, secure containment vessel to allow the remote processing of nuclear materials.
The reality was slightly more complex but, in just over two years, the integrated project team of RED, Sellafield and key subcontractors has designed, built and tested a unique system that’s now ready to go at our facilities here in Hexham.
Joe Orrell MD RED Engineering
Doing things differently
The two-year timeframe for the execution of the project has been another leap forward for the nuclear decommissioning industry. In the past, new equipment for deployment in an active nuclear environment has taken many years to develop and deliver. However, by applying RED’s proven recipe for accelerated innovation from the Oil & Gas sector, we’ve been able to significantly reduce both the duration and the cost of the project.
This was only made possible by Sellafield’s willingness to take a new approach in the way they are thinking and working in partnership with ‘intelligent suppliers’ like RED. Sellafield is breaking out of the old linear process and encouraging a far more agile, fast-track approach that produces better results in a fraction of the time. This is a perfect fit with RED’s approach, and the success of DPaCC is our best demonstration that it works.
Making robots think
Mark Stobo is a RED Principal Engineer and the engineering lead for the DPaCC project. A passionate advocate for robotic engineering, he’s been the driving force behind our success in adapting an ‘off-the-shelf’ robot arm to function at a far more sophisticated level.
Most industrial robots are programmed to carry out exactly the same repetitive task, over and over again. But for this project we needed a robot with the flexibility to respond to variations in the condition of the product it will be handling and adapt its actions accordingly.
Huge credit for achieving this goes to Mark and our programming expert, Tim Newsome, and also to our control system partner MJR Automation. Together they have developed a control system that combines pre-defined sub routines with operator inputs to provide the intelligence and flexibility required and enable the robot to vary its response in real time.
Getting it done
Even in normal conditions the scope, complexity and timescale of this project would have been challenging enough, but completing it through the restrictions of the COVID crisis is a testimony to the skill and dedication of our team led by Will Hopps, who took on the role of Project Manager in April last year.
The assembly and testing of DPaCC has involved marshalling the input of more than 100 supply chain partners, managing the testing and training programme with Sellafield’s own engineers and operatives here at our test facility and working closely with the client to finalise the details of the system in preparation for deployment on site.
Engineering the future
In these uncertain and challenging times, driving this project through to a successful conclusion has been an enormously positive confirmation of our ability to think outside the box – or in this case to put a robot in a box – and make a real difference to our clients. We feel confident that this key innovation has the potential to be applied to the automation of many other processes in similarly hazardous environments.
In this new digital age of the Industrial revolution, smart machines, robotics, automation and AI are already playing a major and growing part in many areas of business and industry. We’re delighted that Sellafield has trusted us to show that RED can help lead the way in engineering and applying this technology to make even the most hazardous environment safer and healthier for those who work in it.
