Legacy ponds at Sellafield |
Two Saab Seaeye Tiger robotic vehicles are to work in the radioactive ponds at the Sellafield nuclear site.
They were chosen because their proven thruster reliability is vitally important in a highly corrosive environment where maintenance intervention is hazardous to humans.
“Reliability is key for the health of operators,” explains Phil Toomey, Technical Manager at Sellafield Ltd. “They must wash down the Tigers during maintenance checks as exposure to radiation for operators is carefully limited, so unplanned downtime will quickly exhaust their safe working period in any one year.”
Sellafield Ltd intends the Tigers to work continuously for six months at a time between scheduled maintenance periods.
The Tiger’s thruster working life of 10,000 hours was a major appeal. Phil Toomey describes how the Tiger’s role is to help clean up and empty the legacy storage ponds by picking up and sorting nuclear material, including radioactive fuel bars. The nuclear waste can often be buried in about 30 cms of sludge, which is also highly radioactive and hazardous.
Each fuel bar is around one metre long, weighs 15 kilos and is gripped in the middle by the Tiger’s under-slung manipulator, monitored and identified, then transferred to a skip which can be removed from the pond for safer storage in a more modern facility.
Rob Smith, Retrievals Manager for Legacy Ponds, said: “It’s a shift into a ‘production line mentality’ for waste retrievals. These machines will be at the nuclear coalface for longer than our existing fleet can manage. They will be our new workhorses for hazard and risk reduction.”
Sellafield Ltd plans to have removed all bulk fuel and sludge from its legacy ponds by 2022.
Saab Seaeye is the world’s leading underwater e‐robotics company, with the most advanced range of tethered, autonomous and hybrid electric robotic systems, engineered to address the diverse range of tasks found across commercial, defence and scientific markets.
For more information contact:
Matt Bates Saab Seaeye Limited +44 (0)1489 898 000 Matt.Bates@saabgroup.com www.seaeye.com |
Ruth Hutchison Sellafield Ltd +44 (0) 1946 786227 ruth.hutchison@sellafieldsites.com |