Development of an automated milling system for the decontamination of the wall surface in a nuclear power plant

Nowadays, concrete decontamination is done by, e.g., grinding, milling, etc., always combined with labor resources. In order to relieve employees from the monotonous and physically stressful decontamination work, a novel milling system for automated surface decontamination has been developed and assembled. The current work presents this new concept for a milling tool that could automatically position itself to the wall surface and subsequently remove surface contamination. A process chain (Fig. 1) defined in the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)-funded project ROBDEKON was introduced first. The chain consists of a total of five steps for a compact process, from environmental exploration to the transportation of waste. This automated decontamination is the third step in the process chain for decontamination of building structures in nuclear facilities. The structure (Fig. 2) of the milling system and the function of each component are then explained in detail. With the assembled sensors, such as a laser distance sensor, a force sensor etc., the various physical quantities can be measured in real time, thus enabling automation of the milling process during decontamination.