Overview

The IIND competition was launched in early 2017, with an objective of encouraging the supply chain to innovate, collaborate and transfer cross sector technologies into the nuclear market to solve a 'grand challenge'. Learning from previous innovation competitions, Sellafield Ltd (SL) were requested to steer the scope of the competition by identifying, specifying and bringing to life a decommissioning challenge which was timely, complex, diverse, had significant opportunity for a step change and where RAI could be part of the solution. SL selected the end-to-end decommissioning of beta gamma reprocessing cells as the 'challenge statement'.

Barrnon won through Phase 1 and Phase 2 to deliver the Barrnon Integrated Decommissioning System (BIDS) in the Phase 3 Active Demonstrator.

The Challenge

'A transferable integrated decommissioning toolkit which minimises the interface between the decommissioning Operator and the hazard, whilst aspiring for a 10-fold increase in productivity and reduction in lifecycle cost'

The competition sought integrated systems which were scalable and transferable and would ultimately lead to safer, faster, better value decommissioning for the future.

Active Demonstrators are not typical Sellafield Projects. So Barrnon's offer for the IIND challenge - BIDS - seeks to challenge the norm and deliver within an accelerated timeframe.

Capability

a) Facility Characterisation (radiological and physical) – understand the environment in order to make informed decisions.

b) Visualisation & planning – enables the project team and stakeholders to visualise the challenge, become immersed, simulate scenarios and enable informed decisions to be made.

c) Contamination management – minimise cross contamination, deal with liquors, plan for recovery of equipment and enable decontamination where appropriate.

d) Undertake de-planting / size reduction – Access plant equipment, remove it from its in-situ location, size reduce and recover waste items, minimising human intervention.

e) Waste characterisation – Classify waste items in accordance with waste disposal / Storage Conditions for Acceptance (CfA)

f) Waste packaging – Package waste into appropriate containers in an optimised way, wherever possible minimising human intervention and application of the waste hierarchy.

The IIND is looking to advance new technologies and has enabled unconstrained thinking to tackle the challenge, BIDS and Barrnon are showing an advanced technology offering to enable that goal.