Safety at key infrastructure or military sites offers insurers valuable lessons in site safety, using the latest technology. One site is Sellafield, which is where most Britain’s nuclear reactor waste is stored, apart from lower level stuff housed at Drigg a few miles down the Cumbrian coast. There are old reactors at Sellafield too, including one which caught fire back in 1957, when your IE’s Editor’s Dad was working there. Arriving for his shift one morning Don Walker was told to “run for your life, she’s going to blow” by several workers. Nuclear power was very experimental back in those Cold War days and only some good luck, plus cool thinking by leading scientists avoided a Chernobyl type disaster.
Luckily the fire was extinguished, although radioactive gases and smoke escaped before the reactor core was sealed. In fact my Dad and my Grandfather both told me that lots of contaminated fire damaged items, gloves, masks, clothing and more – even a tractor – was buried on site and concreted over.
Now much of that original 1940s/50s infrastructure is ready for de-commissioning as radiation levels fall over time. It’s safer now, but taking apart old radiation-dosed buildings is still extremely hazardous of course. One thing which can really help minimise risk to staff today are drones. People can stay well away from the buildings, wearing protective suits and map radiation hot spots. Dronepilots have successfully completed two flight firsts on a UK nuclear site leading the way to increased safety of employees during decommissioning.
Drone inspection could be very useful for insurers after various catastrophe events, fires, floods or building collapse where sending in rescue teams may be too dangerous. There are lots of lessons here. Here’s the word from Sellafield;
The successful deployment of the Elios 3 drone equipped with a LiDAR sensor marks a major milestone for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team, enabling Sellafield Ltd to achieve unparalleled efficiency in mapping and 3D modelling. Hot on the heels of this first flight the team then successfully flew the Elios 3 drone with a RAD (Radiation Activity Detection) dosimeter which they hope will allow them to map radiation hotspots in areas before other colleagues go into unused areas of the site.
Amanda Smith, UAV Equipment Programme Lead, based at Sellafield Ltd’s Engineering Centre of Excellence in Cleator Moor, highlighted the safety and financial benefits of deploying a drone for the mapping.
She said: “We are thrilled that this first flight of Elios 3 with the LiDAR payload was a success and the data collected is now being processed in a Computer Aided Design system which will produce a 3D model of the area in question, helping to inform engineering decisions going forwards.
EIGHT MINUTE WINDOW
“Sending a drone into this tight and unused space rather than an employee in the first instance reduces risk, and also saves time and money. The team put a lot of work into making sure they were fully prepared for this flight. There are building plans they can study and try to work out the best route for the drone to take. However, these plans are decades old and, as in this case, the pilot encountered obstacles we weren’t expecting. The access into the area was also tighter than expected.
“He had to adapt to the changing circumstances incredibly quickly as he only had eight minutes of battery power to get into the area, map it with the equipment, and get out again. We always have two pilots on every flight as even though it is a short flight the levels of concentration required by the pilot are extremely high and at Sellafield we want to ensure the safety of our pilots and the equipment.”
Sam Jay, UAV equipment engineer and chief pilot, said: “The flights can be very intense and in this case there was pipework everywhere. The drones fly in a cage with sensors so if they do happen to touch anything they won’t be damaged. The hardest part is remembering your way out again. In such a short space of time you need to get in and out quickly. There can be a lot of pressure as not getting the drone out and having to send someone in after it would defeat the point of the flight.
“Now that we have scanned the area the engineers can design scaffolding before they go to unblock a pipe which has been causing an issue in this particular area. By deploying the drone, and speeding up the process we have potentially saved the company, and the taxpayer, hundreds of thousands of pounds.”
LOOKING FOR HOT SPOTS
Buoyed by the success of this flight, Sellafield made history again this month as the first UK nuclear site to employ a drone equipped with a radiation monitor. This innovative addition aims to assess radiation levels and identify potential hot spots in areas where radiation exposure levels are unknown. The deployment of the drone with a radiation payload demonstrates the organisation’s commitment to exploring innovative solutions for radiation assessment, reducing risk to those working on the site.
Amanda added: “By flying with a radiation monitor we hope to be able to provide a map of radiation hotspots within areas to assess where it may or may not be safe for colleagues to enter.”
Tom Calverley, a radiometric physicist seconded to the UAV team, said: “The first flight was a great success but there are many safety checks to go through before we can rely on the data we obtain. We must ensure that the readings are accurate and once we have confidence in the numbers from the dose readings it can help with planning jobs and other radiation monitoring applications.. We take exposure to radiation extremely seriously on the site and we carefully plan and minimise any exposure that colleagues may face as part of their job.
“Our acceptable levels of exposure are well below what the regulators say is safe. What we hope the drones will do is pinpoint any changes in dose readings within an area. If there are significant changes we can then explore why that might be. There is significant testing to do before we can have confidence in the readings. We are going to be testing the drone in a controlled environment by exposing it to varying dose profiles. This testing will give us confidence in our understanding of the radiometric performance of the combined system.
“We must validate what manufacturers tell us as employee safety is our number one priority. But this is undoubtedly a huge step forward and could make a massive difference to how we operate and keep our staff safe on site.”
By leveraging the capabilities of their fleet of drones Sellafield Ltd embraces the future of aerial exploration, improving nuclear site safety and achieving efficiencies.
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