{"id":26326,"date":"2023-08-07T20:46:18","date_gmt":"2023-08-07T20:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saj.pachecostudios.com?p=26326"},"modified":"2023-08-07T20:46:19","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T20:46:19","slug":"groundbreaking-flight-milestones-at-sellafield-to-lead-the-way-in-enhancing-safety-on-nuclear-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/international-news\/groundbreaking-flight-milestones-at-sellafield-to-lead-the-way-in-enhancing-safety-on-nuclear-sites\/%20","title":{"rendered":"Groundbreaking Flight Milestones at Sellafield to Lead the Way in Enhancing Safety on Nuclear Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo above – Peter King (left), Technical Specialist and Sam Jay, UAV Engineer and Chief Pilot, at Sellafield Ltd\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence, with the Flyability Elios 3 drone.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drone pilots have successfully completed two flight firsts on a UK nuclear site leading the way to increased safety of employees during decommissioning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The successful deployment of the Elios 3 drone equipped with\na LiDAR sensor marks a major milestone for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)\nteam, enabling Sellafield Ltd to achieve unparalleled efficiency in mapping and\n3D modelling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot on the heels of this first flight the team then\nsuccessfully flew the Elios 3 drone with a RAD (Radiation Activity Detection)\ndosimeter which they hope will allow them to map radiation hotspots in areas\nbefore other colleagues go into unused areas of the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Smith, UAV Equipment Program Lead, based at\nSellafield Ltd\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence in Cleator Moor, highlighted\nthe safety and financial benefits of deploying a drone for the mapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sam Jay, UAV Engineer and Chief Pilot at Sellafield Ltd\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence, looking at the screen display of the mapping images captured by the Flyability Elios 3 drone. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

She said: “We are thrilled that this first flight of\nElios 3 with the LiDAR payload was a success and the data collected is now\nbeing processed in a Computer Aided Design system which will produce a 3D model\nof the area in question, helping to inform engineering decisions going\nforwards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSending a drone into this tight and unused space rather\nthan an employee in the first instance reduces risk, and also saves time and\nmoney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe team put a lot of work into making sure they were fully\nprepared for this flight. There are building plans they can study and try to\nwork out the best route for the drone to take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, these plans are decades old and, as in this case,\nthe pilot encountered obstacles we weren’t expecting. The access into the area\nwas also tighter than expected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe had to adapt to the changing circumstances incredibly\nquickly as he only had eight minutes of battery power to get into the area, map\nit with the equipment, and get out again. We always have two pilots on every\nflight as even though it is a short flight the levels of concentration required\nby the pilot are extremely high and at Sellafield, we want to ensure the safety\nof our pilots and the equipment.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sam Jay, UAV equipment engineer and chief pilot, said: \u201cThe 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\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow that we have scanned the area the engineers can design\nscaffolding before they go to unblock a pipe which has been causing an issue in\nthis particular area. By deploying the drone and speeding up the process we\nhave potentially saved the company, and the taxpayer, hundreds of thousands of\npounds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buoyed by the success of this flight, Sellafield made\nhistory again this month as the first UK nuclear site to employ a drone\nequipped with a radiation monitor. This innovative addition aims to assess\nradiation levels and identify potential hot spots in areas where radiation\nexposure levels are unknown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deployment of the drone with a radiation payload\ndemonstrates the organization\u2019s commitment to exploring innovative solutions\nfor radiation assessment, reducing risk to those working on the site. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda added: \u201cBy flying with a radiation monitor we hope to\nbe able to provide a map of radiation hotspots within areas to assess where it\nmay or may not be safe for colleagues to enter.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Calverley, a radiometric physicist seconded to the UAV\nteam, said: \u201cThe first flight was a great success but there are many safety\nchecks to go through before we can rely on the data we obtain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe must ensure that the readings are accurate and once we\nhave confidence in the numbers from the dose readings it can help with planning\njobs and other radiation monitoring applications… We take exposure to\nradiation extremely seriously on the site and we carefully plan and minimize\nany exposure that colleagues may face as part of their job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur acceptable levels of exposure are well below what the\nregulators say is safe. What we hope the drones will do is pinpoint any changes\nin dose readings within an area. If there are significant changes, we can then\nexplore why that might be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is significant testing to do before we can have\nconfidence in the readings. We are going to be testing the drone in a\ncontrolled environment by exposing it to varying dose profiles. This testing\nwill give us confidence in our understanding of the radiometric performance of\nthe combined system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe must validate what manufacturers tell us as employee\nsafety is our number one priority. But this is undoubtedly a huge step forward\nand could make a massive difference to how we operate and keep our staff safe\non site.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By leveraging the capabilities of their fleet of drones\nSellafield Ltd embraces the future of aerial exploration, improving nuclear\nsite safety and achieving efficiencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo above – Peter King (left), Technical Specialist and Sam Jay, UAV Engineer and Chief Pilot, at Sellafield Ltd\u2019s Engineering Centre of Excellence, with the Flyability Elios 3 drone. Drone pilots have successfully completed two flight firsts on a UK nuclear site leading the way to increased safety of employees during decommissioning. The successful deployment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sellefields-UK-edit-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26329,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26326\/revisions\/26329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}