CA2442183A1 - Method and device for decontamination of a surface - Google Patents
Method and device for decontamination of a surface Download PDFInfo
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- CA2442183A1 CA2442183A1 CA002442183A CA2442183A CA2442183A1 CA 2442183 A1 CA2442183 A1 CA 2442183A1 CA 002442183 A CA002442183 A CA 002442183A CA 2442183 A CA2442183 A CA 2442183A CA 2442183 A1 CA2442183 A1 CA 2442183A1
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- measuring
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- G—PHYSICS
- G21—NUCLEAR PHYSICS; NUCLEAR ENGINEERING
- G21D—NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
- G21D1/00—Details of nuclear power plant
- G21D1/003—Nuclear facilities decommissioning arrangements
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G01—MEASURING; TESTING
- G01T—MEASUREMENT OF NUCLEAR OR X-RADIATION
- G01T1/00—Measuring X-radiation, gamma radiation, corpuscular radiation, or cosmic radiation
- G01T1/16—Measuring radiation intensity
- G01T1/169—Exploration, location of contaminated surface areas
-
- G—PHYSICS
- G21—NUCLEAR PHYSICS; NUCLEAR ENGINEERING
- G21F—PROTECTION AGAINST X-RADIATION, GAMMA RADIATION, CORPUSCULAR RADIATION OR PARTICLE BOMBARDMENT; TREATING RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMINATED MATERIAL; DECONTAMINATION ARRANGEMENTS THEREFOR
- G21F9/00—Treating radioactively contaminated material; Decontamination arrangements therefor
- G21F9/001—Decontamination of contaminated objects, apparatus, clothes, food; Preventing contamination thereof
-
- Y—GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS
- Y02—TECHNOLOGIES OR APPLICATIONS FOR MITIGATION OR ADAPTATION AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE
- Y02E—REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GAS [GHG] EMISSIONS, RELATED TO ENERGY GENERATION, TRANSMISSION OR DISTRIBUTION
- Y02E30/00—Energy generation of nuclear origin
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- General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
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- Spectroscopy & Molecular Physics (AREA)
- Molecular Biology (AREA)
- Plasma & Fusion (AREA)
- Health & Medical Sciences (AREA)
- Food Science & Technology (AREA)
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- Length Measuring Devices By Optical Means (AREA)
Abstract
The invention relates to a method and device for decontamination of a surface, whereby the surface (F) is treated by means of a treatment tool (4), said treatment tool (4) being guided over the surface (F) for decontamination by a robot (2). According to the invention, a measuring device is successively moved over a measuring field correlated with the surface (F) for decontamination, in such a way that, in a first measuring sequence, the measuring device is positioned over a first measuring region of the measuring field, a measured value, measured by the measuring device, representing the contamination value of said first measuring region, together with the co- ordinates of the first measuring region are stored in a memory device. In a subsequent series of n-1 measuring sequences, the measuring device is placed over each of the n-1 measuring regions, each measured value is stored along with the co-ordinates of the corresponding measuring region in the memory device. In a subsequent step each of the n measured values, obtained thus, are checked by the control device for whether said value is below a given threshold and the treatment tool (4) is moved, by the robot (2), to that, or those, surface region(s) of the surface (F) for treatment, correlated to the measured region(s), with a measuredvalue lying above the threshold value.
Description
SIN1 E001 WOCAlu103s29/Dr.LIu1/02.09.2003 Method and device for the decontamination of a surface Description The invention relates to a method for a decontamination of a surface, in which the surface is treated with a treatment tool, the treatment tool being guided by a robot over said surface, as well as a device for conducting this method.
When shutting down or dismantling nuclear installations, a final decontamination of these installations has got to be performed after the dismounting of its devices and equipment. In particular in older installations, contaminations not only exist on the surface of floors, walls, and ceilings, but also in deeper layers of these floors, walls, and ceilings, as e. g. contamination protection layers have not been fully operational or cracks therein have occured. For this reason, it is presently required to remove material layers in order to remove contaminations. Up to now, this has been done with various methods, each of them having a large demand of personel and, in addition, are characterized by bad working conditions (noise, de-bris, aspiration protection). Additionally, the irregular surface structures being the result of a manual removement of the material layers create technical problems regarding the clearance measurement of the contamination of the rooms, which is required in order to prove that the contamination is below legally fixed values so that these rooms or parts of buildings no longer fall under the provisions of the re-spective nuclear regulations.
A further disadvantage of known methods is that substantially independent of the degree of contamination of partial surface areas of the whole surface the same amount of material has to be removed even if this wouldn't be necessary in partial surface areas where the contamination is below given limit values.
Proceeding in this way does not only have the disadvantage that the known me-thods are very time consuming, but also that a huge amount of waste is created.
This is particularity disadvantageous in the case of surfaces having radioactive decontamination, as the disposal of radioactively decontaminated material is ex-tremely expensive.
The German patent application laid open DE-A1 195 21 236 discloses a method for the cleaning of barriers like walls and/or ceilings and/or floors especially of closed areas as rooms, in particular laboratories, in which a contamination has occured mainly by airborn contaminants. For cleaning the surface of a barrier the known method provides that the material of the whole surface is removed comple-teiy or almost completely, without any regard to the decontamination level of cer-tain partial areas of the surface in order to provide a new surface. A feature con-sidered of special importance by the known method is that, prior to the removing of the material of the old surface, recesses in the old surface such as cracks and holes, are pre-treated and then filled with filling material such that the resulting surface is planar or at least substantially planar. This pre-treatment is preferrably done by boring, cheiseling-out or scraping-out. After the pre-treatment has been completed and a intact surface has been created in this way, material from this intact surface is removed over the entire area of the surface in an amount of approximately 1 to 3 mm in depth. fn order to minimize the depth of the layer to be removed and thus the amount of work, the known method provides that orien-tated surface contamination measurements are performed in order to determine the depth of the layer of the existing surface which has to be removed. By procee-ding in this way the known method tries to achieve that only as much surtace ma-terial is removed as is required in order to render the new surface reliably decontamination-free.
The known method has also the disadvantage that material from the entire sur-face area is removed regardless of the contamination level of partial surtace areas. The known method too creates a high amount of waste, resulting in high disposal costs.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a method and a de-vice for the decontamination of surfaces, in particular of surfaces being radioacti-vely contaminated, in which the amount of waste to be disposed is reduced and which is capable of being performed automatically.
This object is achieved in that a measuring device is successively moved over a measuring field correlated with the surface to be decontaminated, such that in a first measuring sequence the measuring device is positioned over a first measu-ring region of the measuring field, that a measuring value measured by the mea-surfing device representing the contamination value of this first measuring region is stored together with the coordinates of the first measurement region in a con-trot unit, that in a subsequent series of n-1 measuring sequences the measuring device is positioned over each of further n-1 measuring regions, that the corre-sponding measuring values are stored along with the coordinates of the respecti-ve measuring regions in the control unit, that in a subsequent step each of the n measuring values obtained in this way is evaluated by the control unit for whether it is below a given threshold value, and that the treatment tool is moved by the ro-bot to that, or those, areas of the surface to be treated correlated to that, or those, of the measuring regions having a measuring value being above the threshold value.
The invention creates a method having the advantage that a time saving de-contamination of surfaces can be achieved, since the measurements according to the invention allow in an advantageous manner to selectively choose the partial areas of the surface to be decontaminated.
Furthermore, the invention provides a device for the decontamination of a surtace having a robot on the arm of which a treatmtent tool can be mounted and a measuring device can be arranged and moved by the robot arm over the surtace to be decontaminated, that the measuring device is positioned by the robot in a first measuring sequence over a first measuring region of the measuring field, that the robot has a control unit in which a measuring value meassured by the measuring device representing the contamination value of this first measuring re-gion can be stored along with the coordinates of the first measuring region, that in the control unit of the device further n-1 measuring values of n-1 measuring regi-ons can be stored along with the coordinates of the corresponding measuring re-gions, that the control unit evaluates each of the n measuring values for whether a measuring value is below a certain threshold value, and that the treatment tool can be moved by the robot to the that, or those, of the surtace areas of the sur-face to be treated correlated to that, or those, of the measuring regions having a measuring value being above the threshold value.
The device according to the invention has got the advantage that it allows in a simple manner a selective treatment of that areas of the surface to be decontami-nated having a decontamination above the threshold value.
Further advantageous embodiments of the invention are the subject matter of the depending claims.
Further details and advantages of the invention are disclosed in the description and the drawing of a specific embodiment. !t shows:
Figure 1 an exemplary embodiment of a device for conducting the method.
Figure 1 shows a device, generally designated with 1, for the decontamination of a surface F by means of a surface treatment, in particular of a surtace removal.
This surface F is in particular the surface of a room, e. g. a wall surface or a cei-ling surface. The device 1 has a robot 2, which is known per se and is hence not described in detail any more. The robot 2 has a robot arm 3, the front end of which bears a treatment tool 4. The treatment tool 4 is in the case described here a knocking tool and has several pressure operated knocking elements being pro-vided in such a way in a housing having several compartments so that each knok-king element is in operational connection with its compartment. The treatment tool 4 further has an air pressure compartment, an air pressure expansion compart-ment, a suction compartment and a collection compartment. The pressurized air being required for the operation of the treatment tool 4 is provided by a pressuri-zed air generation device 5 and is led to the treatment tool 4 via a corresponding line 6. In order to prevent a contamination of the surrounding areas, the device 1 provides that the compartments, in which the knocking elements of the treatment tool operate, are air-tight sealed from the enviroment and that the removed par-ticles are led away by the suction device 7.
ft must be noted that it is also possible to employ instead of a knocking tool a grinding tool or a milling tool. The method described below is not limited to a cer-tain kind of tool or a certain tool type. The described method as well as the device 1 therefore allow in an advantageous way to adapt the treatment tool 4 born by the robot 2 to the specific surface treatment process required in a specific case.
In the following it is assumed that the surtace F to be treated is radioactively de-contaminated and has got to be decontaminated by means of a surface removal of one or several material layers. It does not require any further explanation far the person skilled in the art that the case of a radioactive contamination descri-bed below is only one single exemplary embodiment, as the method described al-so can be employed in an advantageous way for the treatment of other kinds of contaminations of the surface F.
The method described know provides that in a first step a removal of a first mate-rial layer is performed by the treatment tool 4. In order to guide the treatment tool 4 by the robot 2 over the surtace F automatically, it is provided that in this first step of the method the surface F to be treated is defined for the device 1.
This is -s-preferably achieved in that the robot 2 moves the treatment tool 4 to a first corner point F1. In the case described here this first corner point F1 is the first out of four corner points F1-F4 defining the surface F being rectangular in this case. The coordinates of this corner point F1 are stored in a control unit (not shown) of the device 1. Then the robot 2 moves the treatment tool 4 to a second corner point of the surface F and the coordinates of the corner point F2 are stored in the con-trol unit of the device 1. in a corresponding way the treatment tool 4 is moved by the robot 2 to the third corner point F3 and to the fourth corner point F4 and the coordinates of the corresponding positions are stored in the control unit of the de-vice 1. It need not to be noted that the case described here, which is the one of a rectangular surface F, is not compulsory. The surface F to be treated can of cour-se have a random shape F', so that in this case the definition of the shape F' is done by storing coordinates of an appropriate number of corner points F1-F4 in the control unit of the device 1. It also can be provided that the teaching-process described afore is performed by a separate teaching-tool.
After the shape F' of the surface F to be treated has been defined as described above, the treatment tool 4 is moved by the robot 2 successively over the surface F and the first material layer is removed and transported away by the suction de-vice 7.
In a second step following the first step a measurement of the contamination valu-es of the surface F to be treated is performed. For this purpose a measuring de-vice known per se is employed, which can be moved by the robot 2 over the sur-face F to be treated. This measuring device can be a part of the treatment tool 4.
It is also possible, that the robot 2 performs a tool change, in such a way that it puts the treatment tool 4 after the treatment step of the first method step in an sui-table tool box (not shown) and picks up from this tool box the measuring device.
Since the measuring device has generally a different configuration as the treat-ment tool 4, the method described provides - if required - that the measuring field being correlated with the surface F, which is to be scanned by the measuring de-vice, is defined once again: The measuring device is moved by the robot arm 3 of the robot 2 to the corner points F 1-F4 of the surtace F and the shape F' of the measuring field is defined in this way. It is also possible that, due to known geo-metrical correlation between the treatment tool 4 and the measuring device, this teaching step can be omitted.
For the measuring of the remaining contamination of the surface F to be treated it is provided that the robot 2 moves the measuring device to a first measuring regi-on of the surface F to be measured, i. e. to the measurement field being defined by the corner points F1-F4 of the surtace F and the shape F', and a first contami-nation measurement is performed according to a pre-defined measuring rule. The first measuring value of this first measurement region is then stored in the control unit of the device 1 along with the coordinates of the first measuring region, which can preferably be derived in a simple way by evaluating the position of the mea-surfing device.
Then the robot 2 moves the measuring device to a second measuring region. It is preferred that the second measuring region is immediately adjacent to the first measuring region. A second measuring value is measured and stored along with the coordinates of the second measurement region in the control unit of the de-vice 1.
After the measuring of the second measurement region the measuring device is moved by the robot 2 to a third measuring region. It is once more preferred that the third measuring region is adjacent to the second measurement region. A
third measuring value representing the contamination value of the third measuring re-gion is then stored in the control unit of the device along with the coordinates of the third measuring region. This process is continued until in a series of n-3 consecutive measuring sequences the entire measuring field consisting of n mea-suring regions has been covered.
_ $ _ It is prefered that the surface F and hance the measuring field is scanned by an appropriate movement of the robot arm 3 in a coloumn-like way. It is also possible to scan the surface F line-like. Furthermore, the robot 2 allows to scan the sur-face F in a random way.
The description above assumes that the single measuring regions are immediate-ly adjacent. But it is also possible that the individual measuring regions are di-stant from each other, or are overlapping. The use of the robot 2 for the move-ment of the measuring device over the surface F has the advantage that the gathering of the measuring values can be done in various ways, each way espe-cially adapted to the specific circumstances being then present.
After the completion of this method step, in the control unit a number of n measu-ring values along with the coordinates of the measuring regions correlated to the measuring values are stored. A measuring value matrix is achieved in this way, representing the distribution of the contamination values over the measuring field.
This allows in advantageous way the spatial correlation of each individual measu-rement value with a certain area of the surface F.
In a consecutive method step each measuring value is evaluated for whether it is below a threshold level. If each measuring value is below this threshold level, a further decontamination treatment is not required and the measuring values gathered can be used for documenting that the surtace F only has contamination values being below the ones prescribed by law.
If one or several measuring values are above the pre-set threshold, it is now pos-sible, due to the spatial assignment of the individual measuring values to well-de-fined measuring regions, and hence to well-defined areas of the surface F, to se-lectively treat the respective partical areas of the surface F in that the robot 2 puts the measuring device back in a tool box and picks up the treatment tool 4 _g_ from the tool box, to move the treatment tool 4 to the one or the ones of the areas of the surface F to be treated which are correlated with the measurement regions having a to high measuring value, and to perform a further surface treatment of these areas of the surface F. After all surface areas of the surtace F having a to high measuring value have been treated correspondingly, the robot 2 puts the treatment tool 4 back in the tool box, takes once more the measuring device and performs a further measurement of all or - what is preferred - only of the selecti-vely treated partial areas of the surtace F. The measurment values gathered in this way are once more stored in the control unit and are once more compared with the pre-set threshold value. If now these measuring values are below this pre-set level, the decontamination process is completed and the surtace F is cle-aned. If at least one measurement value is above the threshold value, a further post-treatment is pertormed in the way described above.
As already mentioned at the beginning, the method described is not only well-sui-ted for the decontamination of surfaces, in particular of the ones of a room, being radioactively contaminated, by the removal of material layers from the surface.
Beyond that, the method also can be employed in an advantageous way for other decontaminations than radioactive ones, so that the term "decontamination" em-ployed here must be understood in its broadest sense. The method furthermore is suited for the decontamination of mercury or heavy metal containing surfaces.
For the sake of completeness it must be noted that it is preferred that the measu-ring value matrix is visualized by a display means of the device 1. In order to achieve a simple visualization of the measuring value distribution it can be provi-ded that the measuring values beyond the threshold are displayed in a first co-lour, e. g. in red, and that the measurement values below this pre-set level are displayed in a second colour, e. g. in green. Proceeding in this Way has got the advantage that in a very simple manner a rapid perception of the distribution of the measuring values of the surtace F to be decontaminated can be achieved. it goes without saying that the measuring value matrix cannot only be displayed, but also can be printed or stored or can be outputted, preferrably in a digital way.
It must be noted that the first method step being described in the above-men-boned embodiment, i. e. the first material removal, is not compulsory. !t is also possible that the measurements are performed as described before a first surtace treatment of the surface F is performed.
When shutting down or dismantling nuclear installations, a final decontamination of these installations has got to be performed after the dismounting of its devices and equipment. In particular in older installations, contaminations not only exist on the surface of floors, walls, and ceilings, but also in deeper layers of these floors, walls, and ceilings, as e. g. contamination protection layers have not been fully operational or cracks therein have occured. For this reason, it is presently required to remove material layers in order to remove contaminations. Up to now, this has been done with various methods, each of them having a large demand of personel and, in addition, are characterized by bad working conditions (noise, de-bris, aspiration protection). Additionally, the irregular surface structures being the result of a manual removement of the material layers create technical problems regarding the clearance measurement of the contamination of the rooms, which is required in order to prove that the contamination is below legally fixed values so that these rooms or parts of buildings no longer fall under the provisions of the re-spective nuclear regulations.
A further disadvantage of known methods is that substantially independent of the degree of contamination of partial surface areas of the whole surface the same amount of material has to be removed even if this wouldn't be necessary in partial surface areas where the contamination is below given limit values.
Proceeding in this way does not only have the disadvantage that the known me-thods are very time consuming, but also that a huge amount of waste is created.
This is particularity disadvantageous in the case of surfaces having radioactive decontamination, as the disposal of radioactively decontaminated material is ex-tremely expensive.
The German patent application laid open DE-A1 195 21 236 discloses a method for the cleaning of barriers like walls and/or ceilings and/or floors especially of closed areas as rooms, in particular laboratories, in which a contamination has occured mainly by airborn contaminants. For cleaning the surface of a barrier the known method provides that the material of the whole surface is removed comple-teiy or almost completely, without any regard to the decontamination level of cer-tain partial areas of the surface in order to provide a new surface. A feature con-sidered of special importance by the known method is that, prior to the removing of the material of the old surface, recesses in the old surface such as cracks and holes, are pre-treated and then filled with filling material such that the resulting surface is planar or at least substantially planar. This pre-treatment is preferrably done by boring, cheiseling-out or scraping-out. After the pre-treatment has been completed and a intact surface has been created in this way, material from this intact surface is removed over the entire area of the surface in an amount of approximately 1 to 3 mm in depth. fn order to minimize the depth of the layer to be removed and thus the amount of work, the known method provides that orien-tated surface contamination measurements are performed in order to determine the depth of the layer of the existing surface which has to be removed. By procee-ding in this way the known method tries to achieve that only as much surtace ma-terial is removed as is required in order to render the new surface reliably decontamination-free.
The known method has also the disadvantage that material from the entire sur-face area is removed regardless of the contamination level of partial surtace areas. The known method too creates a high amount of waste, resulting in high disposal costs.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a method and a de-vice for the decontamination of surfaces, in particular of surfaces being radioacti-vely contaminated, in which the amount of waste to be disposed is reduced and which is capable of being performed automatically.
This object is achieved in that a measuring device is successively moved over a measuring field correlated with the surface to be decontaminated, such that in a first measuring sequence the measuring device is positioned over a first measu-ring region of the measuring field, that a measuring value measured by the mea-surfing device representing the contamination value of this first measuring region is stored together with the coordinates of the first measurement region in a con-trot unit, that in a subsequent series of n-1 measuring sequences the measuring device is positioned over each of further n-1 measuring regions, that the corre-sponding measuring values are stored along with the coordinates of the respecti-ve measuring regions in the control unit, that in a subsequent step each of the n measuring values obtained in this way is evaluated by the control unit for whether it is below a given threshold value, and that the treatment tool is moved by the ro-bot to that, or those, areas of the surface to be treated correlated to that, or those, of the measuring regions having a measuring value being above the threshold value.
The invention creates a method having the advantage that a time saving de-contamination of surfaces can be achieved, since the measurements according to the invention allow in an advantageous manner to selectively choose the partial areas of the surface to be decontaminated.
Furthermore, the invention provides a device for the decontamination of a surtace having a robot on the arm of which a treatmtent tool can be mounted and a measuring device can be arranged and moved by the robot arm over the surtace to be decontaminated, that the measuring device is positioned by the robot in a first measuring sequence over a first measuring region of the measuring field, that the robot has a control unit in which a measuring value meassured by the measuring device representing the contamination value of this first measuring re-gion can be stored along with the coordinates of the first measuring region, that in the control unit of the device further n-1 measuring values of n-1 measuring regi-ons can be stored along with the coordinates of the corresponding measuring re-gions, that the control unit evaluates each of the n measuring values for whether a measuring value is below a certain threshold value, and that the treatment tool can be moved by the robot to the that, or those, of the surtace areas of the sur-face to be treated correlated to that, or those, of the measuring regions having a measuring value being above the threshold value.
The device according to the invention has got the advantage that it allows in a simple manner a selective treatment of that areas of the surface to be decontami-nated having a decontamination above the threshold value.
Further advantageous embodiments of the invention are the subject matter of the depending claims.
Further details and advantages of the invention are disclosed in the description and the drawing of a specific embodiment. !t shows:
Figure 1 an exemplary embodiment of a device for conducting the method.
Figure 1 shows a device, generally designated with 1, for the decontamination of a surface F by means of a surface treatment, in particular of a surtace removal.
This surface F is in particular the surface of a room, e. g. a wall surface or a cei-ling surface. The device 1 has a robot 2, which is known per se and is hence not described in detail any more. The robot 2 has a robot arm 3, the front end of which bears a treatment tool 4. The treatment tool 4 is in the case described here a knocking tool and has several pressure operated knocking elements being pro-vided in such a way in a housing having several compartments so that each knok-king element is in operational connection with its compartment. The treatment tool 4 further has an air pressure compartment, an air pressure expansion compart-ment, a suction compartment and a collection compartment. The pressurized air being required for the operation of the treatment tool 4 is provided by a pressuri-zed air generation device 5 and is led to the treatment tool 4 via a corresponding line 6. In order to prevent a contamination of the surrounding areas, the device 1 provides that the compartments, in which the knocking elements of the treatment tool operate, are air-tight sealed from the enviroment and that the removed par-ticles are led away by the suction device 7.
ft must be noted that it is also possible to employ instead of a knocking tool a grinding tool or a milling tool. The method described below is not limited to a cer-tain kind of tool or a certain tool type. The described method as well as the device 1 therefore allow in an advantageous way to adapt the treatment tool 4 born by the robot 2 to the specific surface treatment process required in a specific case.
In the following it is assumed that the surtace F to be treated is radioactively de-contaminated and has got to be decontaminated by means of a surface removal of one or several material layers. It does not require any further explanation far the person skilled in the art that the case of a radioactive contamination descri-bed below is only one single exemplary embodiment, as the method described al-so can be employed in an advantageous way for the treatment of other kinds of contaminations of the surface F.
The method described know provides that in a first step a removal of a first mate-rial layer is performed by the treatment tool 4. In order to guide the treatment tool 4 by the robot 2 over the surtace F automatically, it is provided that in this first step of the method the surface F to be treated is defined for the device 1.
This is -s-preferably achieved in that the robot 2 moves the treatment tool 4 to a first corner point F1. In the case described here this first corner point F1 is the first out of four corner points F1-F4 defining the surface F being rectangular in this case. The coordinates of this corner point F1 are stored in a control unit (not shown) of the device 1. Then the robot 2 moves the treatment tool 4 to a second corner point of the surface F and the coordinates of the corner point F2 are stored in the con-trol unit of the device 1. in a corresponding way the treatment tool 4 is moved by the robot 2 to the third corner point F3 and to the fourth corner point F4 and the coordinates of the corresponding positions are stored in the control unit of the de-vice 1. It need not to be noted that the case described here, which is the one of a rectangular surface F, is not compulsory. The surface F to be treated can of cour-se have a random shape F', so that in this case the definition of the shape F' is done by storing coordinates of an appropriate number of corner points F1-F4 in the control unit of the device 1. It also can be provided that the teaching-process described afore is performed by a separate teaching-tool.
After the shape F' of the surface F to be treated has been defined as described above, the treatment tool 4 is moved by the robot 2 successively over the surface F and the first material layer is removed and transported away by the suction de-vice 7.
In a second step following the first step a measurement of the contamination valu-es of the surface F to be treated is performed. For this purpose a measuring de-vice known per se is employed, which can be moved by the robot 2 over the sur-face F to be treated. This measuring device can be a part of the treatment tool 4.
It is also possible, that the robot 2 performs a tool change, in such a way that it puts the treatment tool 4 after the treatment step of the first method step in an sui-table tool box (not shown) and picks up from this tool box the measuring device.
Since the measuring device has generally a different configuration as the treat-ment tool 4, the method described provides - if required - that the measuring field being correlated with the surface F, which is to be scanned by the measuring de-vice, is defined once again: The measuring device is moved by the robot arm 3 of the robot 2 to the corner points F 1-F4 of the surtace F and the shape F' of the measuring field is defined in this way. It is also possible that, due to known geo-metrical correlation between the treatment tool 4 and the measuring device, this teaching step can be omitted.
For the measuring of the remaining contamination of the surface F to be treated it is provided that the robot 2 moves the measuring device to a first measuring regi-on of the surface F to be measured, i. e. to the measurement field being defined by the corner points F1-F4 of the surtace F and the shape F', and a first contami-nation measurement is performed according to a pre-defined measuring rule. The first measuring value of this first measurement region is then stored in the control unit of the device 1 along with the coordinates of the first measuring region, which can preferably be derived in a simple way by evaluating the position of the mea-surfing device.
Then the robot 2 moves the measuring device to a second measuring region. It is preferred that the second measuring region is immediately adjacent to the first measuring region. A second measuring value is measured and stored along with the coordinates of the second measurement region in the control unit of the de-vice 1.
After the measuring of the second measurement region the measuring device is moved by the robot 2 to a third measuring region. It is once more preferred that the third measuring region is adjacent to the second measurement region. A
third measuring value representing the contamination value of the third measuring re-gion is then stored in the control unit of the device along with the coordinates of the third measuring region. This process is continued until in a series of n-3 consecutive measuring sequences the entire measuring field consisting of n mea-suring regions has been covered.
_ $ _ It is prefered that the surface F and hance the measuring field is scanned by an appropriate movement of the robot arm 3 in a coloumn-like way. It is also possible to scan the surface F line-like. Furthermore, the robot 2 allows to scan the sur-face F in a random way.
The description above assumes that the single measuring regions are immediate-ly adjacent. But it is also possible that the individual measuring regions are di-stant from each other, or are overlapping. The use of the robot 2 for the move-ment of the measuring device over the surface F has the advantage that the gathering of the measuring values can be done in various ways, each way espe-cially adapted to the specific circumstances being then present.
After the completion of this method step, in the control unit a number of n measu-ring values along with the coordinates of the measuring regions correlated to the measuring values are stored. A measuring value matrix is achieved in this way, representing the distribution of the contamination values over the measuring field.
This allows in advantageous way the spatial correlation of each individual measu-rement value with a certain area of the surface F.
In a consecutive method step each measuring value is evaluated for whether it is below a threshold level. If each measuring value is below this threshold level, a further decontamination treatment is not required and the measuring values gathered can be used for documenting that the surtace F only has contamination values being below the ones prescribed by law.
If one or several measuring values are above the pre-set threshold, it is now pos-sible, due to the spatial assignment of the individual measuring values to well-de-fined measuring regions, and hence to well-defined areas of the surface F, to se-lectively treat the respective partical areas of the surface F in that the robot 2 puts the measuring device back in a tool box and picks up the treatment tool 4 _g_ from the tool box, to move the treatment tool 4 to the one or the ones of the areas of the surface F to be treated which are correlated with the measurement regions having a to high measuring value, and to perform a further surface treatment of these areas of the surface F. After all surface areas of the surtace F having a to high measuring value have been treated correspondingly, the robot 2 puts the treatment tool 4 back in the tool box, takes once more the measuring device and performs a further measurement of all or - what is preferred - only of the selecti-vely treated partial areas of the surtace F. The measurment values gathered in this way are once more stored in the control unit and are once more compared with the pre-set threshold value. If now these measuring values are below this pre-set level, the decontamination process is completed and the surtace F is cle-aned. If at least one measurement value is above the threshold value, a further post-treatment is pertormed in the way described above.
As already mentioned at the beginning, the method described is not only well-sui-ted for the decontamination of surfaces, in particular of the ones of a room, being radioactively contaminated, by the removal of material layers from the surface.
Beyond that, the method also can be employed in an advantageous way for other decontaminations than radioactive ones, so that the term "decontamination" em-ployed here must be understood in its broadest sense. The method furthermore is suited for the decontamination of mercury or heavy metal containing surfaces.
For the sake of completeness it must be noted that it is preferred that the measu-ring value matrix is visualized by a display means of the device 1. In order to achieve a simple visualization of the measuring value distribution it can be provi-ded that the measuring values beyond the threshold are displayed in a first co-lour, e. g. in red, and that the measurement values below this pre-set level are displayed in a second colour, e. g. in green. Proceeding in this Way has got the advantage that in a very simple manner a rapid perception of the distribution of the measuring values of the surtace F to be decontaminated can be achieved. it goes without saying that the measuring value matrix cannot only be displayed, but also can be printed or stored or can be outputted, preferrably in a digital way.
It must be noted that the first method step being described in the above-men-boned embodiment, i. e. the first material removal, is not compulsory. !t is also possible that the measurements are performed as described before a first surtace treatment of the surface F is performed.
Claims (11)
1. Method for a decontamination of a surface, in which the surface (F) is treated with a treatment tool (4), the treatment tool (4) being guided by a robot (2) over said surface, characterized in that a measuring device is successively moved over a measuring field correlated with the surface (F) to be decontami-nated, such that in a first measuring sequence the measuring device is posi-tioned over a first measuring region of the measuring field, that a measuring value measured by the measuring device representing the contamination va-lue of this first measuring region is stored together with the coordinates of the first measurement region in a control unit, that in a subsequent series of n-1 measuring sequences the measuring device is positioned over each of further n-1 measuring regions, that the corresponding measuring values are stored along with the coordinates of the respective measuring regions in the control unit, that in a subsequent step each of the n measuring values obtained in this way is evaluated by the control unit for whether it is below a given thres-hold value, and that the treatment tool (4) is moved by the robot (2) to that, or those, areas of the surface (F) to be treated correlated to that, or those, of the measuring regions having a measuring value being above the threshold value.
2. Method according to claim 1, characterized in that at least two of the n mea-suring regions of the measuring field are immediately adjacent.
3. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that at least two measuring regions of the measuring field are distant from each other.
4. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that at least two measuring regions of the measuring field are at least partially overlapping.
5. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that the measuring field to be scanned by the measuring device is defined by moving the measuring device by the robot (2) to m corner points (F1-F4) defining the shape (F') of the measuring field and storing the coordinates of these corner points (F1-F4) in the control unit.
6. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that prior to the measuring process at least one treatment process is performed, in which the treatment tool (4) is guided by the robot (2) over the surface (F) for its sur-face treatment.
7. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that for the definition of the shape (F') of the surface (F) to be treated the treatment tool (4) is guided by the robot (2) to a number of corner points (F1-F4) defining the shape (F') of the surface (F) and storing their coordinates in the control unit.
8. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that after performing at least one treatment step a clearance measurement of the sur-face (F) is performed.
9. Method according to one of the previous claims, characterized in that the measuring values are displayed by a display device.
10. Device for the decontamination of a surface having a robot (2) on the arm of which a treatment tool (4) can be mounted, characterized in that the arm (3) of the robot (2) a measuring device can be mounted and guided by the arm (3) of the robot over the surface (F) to be decontaminated, that the measuring de-vice can be positioned by the robot (2) in a first measuring sequence over a first measuring region of a measuring field, that the robot (2) has a control unit, in which a measuring value measured by the measuring device re-presenting the contamination value of the first measuring region can be sto-red along with the coordinates of the first measuring region, that in the control unit of the device further n-1 measuring values of the n-1 measuring regions can be stored along with the coordinates of the corresponding measuring re-gions, that the control unit evaluates each of the n measuring values for whe-ther a measuring value is below a certain threshold value, and that the treat-ment tool (4) can be moved by the robot (2) to that, or those, of the surface areas of the surface to be treated correlated to that, or those, of the measu-ring regions having a measuring value being above the threshold value.
11. Device according to claim 10, characterized in that the treatment tool (4) is a knocking tool, a grinding tool, or a milling tool.
Applications Claiming Priority (3)
| Application Number | Priority Date | Filing Date | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| DE10115739A DE10115739A1 (en) | 2001-03-26 | 2001-03-26 | Method and device for decontaminating a surface |
| DE10115739.8 | 2001-03-26 | ||
| PCT/EP2002/003377 WO2002078012A2 (en) | 2001-03-26 | 2002-03-26 | Method and device for decontamination of a surface |
Publications (1)
| Publication Number | Publication Date |
|---|---|
| CA2442183A1 true CA2442183A1 (en) | 2002-10-03 |
Family
ID=7679660
Family Applications (1)
| Application Number | Title | Priority Date | Filing Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA002442183A Abandoned CA2442183A1 (en) | 2001-03-26 | 2002-03-26 | Method and device for decontamination of a surface |
Country Status (5)
| Country | Link |
|---|---|
| EP (1) | EP1374254A2 (en) |
| AU (1) | AU2002244754A1 (en) |
| CA (1) | CA2442183A1 (en) |
| DE (1) | DE10115739A1 (en) |
| WO (1) | WO2002078012A2 (en) |
Families Citing this family (1)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DE102015000500A1 (en) * | 2015-01-21 | 2016-07-21 | Rst Gmbh | Method for the decontamination of radioactively contaminated workpieces |
Family Cites Families (7)
| Publication number | Priority date | Publication date | Assignee | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US4595419A (en) * | 1982-12-27 | 1986-06-17 | Proto-Power Corporation | Ultrasonic decontamination robot |
| JP2525884B2 (en) * | 1988-11-16 | 1996-08-21 | 株式会社日立製作所 | Decontamination method for radioactive solid waste |
| JPH0688874A (en) * | 1992-09-07 | 1994-03-29 | Toshiba Corp | Contamination inspecting device |
| JP3293314B2 (en) * | 1994-04-14 | 2002-06-17 | ミノルタ株式会社 | Cleaning robot |
| DE19521236C2 (en) * | 1995-06-10 | 1999-08-05 | Nukem Gmbh | Process for decontaminating the boundaries of closed areas |
| FR2741991B1 (en) * | 1995-11-30 | 1998-01-16 | Cogema | METHOD AND INSTALLATION FOR REMOTE DISMANTLING OF IRRADIATED STRUCTURES |
| JP2997657B2 (en) * | 1997-04-07 | 2000-01-11 | 株式会社 イング | Method and apparatus for cleaning storage tank |
-
2001
- 2001-03-26 DE DE10115739A patent/DE10115739A1/en not_active Withdrawn
-
2002
- 2002-03-26 WO PCT/EP2002/003377 patent/WO2002078012A2/en not_active Application Discontinuation
- 2002-03-26 AU AU2002244754A patent/AU2002244754A1/en not_active Abandoned
- 2002-03-26 EP EP02712957A patent/EP1374254A2/en not_active Withdrawn
- 2002-03-26 CA CA002442183A patent/CA2442183A1/en not_active Abandoned
Also Published As
| Publication number | Publication date |
|---|---|
| DE10115739A1 (en) | 2002-10-17 |
| WO2002078012A3 (en) | 2002-12-12 |
| WO2002078012A2 (en) | 2002-10-03 |
| EP1374254A2 (en) | 2004-01-02 |
| AU2002244754A1 (en) | 2002-10-08 |
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Legal Events
| Date | Code | Title | Description |
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| FZDE | Discontinued |