Grant: Alliance Grants

Our nuclear power plants (NPPs) are aging, and many must be decommissioned soon, at a cost of billions of dollars. Doing this safely and cost effectively requires complete information on asset geometries, materials, conditions and functional categories. Yet our NPPs were built with 2D paper drawings, and despite increasing digitization efforts, substantial information gaps remain. Therefore, this research will develop novel process pipelines for digitization and asset information acquisition and modeling to support planning, safety assessments and training for key NPP decommissioning activities and workflows. We will focus on data capture of 3D geometry, location, radioactivity and condition of assets such as concrete and steel structural elements, piping, conduits, valves, equipment and other plant objects. Critical quantity estimates and bills of materials (decommissioning inventories) that are required for planning decommissioning become more easily generated once this information is available. By importing this information including equipment and robotics models into virtual reality, safety training and decommissioning planning can be optimized in collaborative and richly visual environments with AI assistance for critical workflows, such as optimizing waste packing and planning deconstruction activities. Impacts for Canada will be substantial. The sophistication and effectiveness of our industrial engineering economic ecosystem in the domain of NPP decommissioning and hazardous facility maintenance will grow immeasurably. Decommissioning risk will be reduced. Productivity and safety will be improved, and a more attractive environment for highly talented highly qualified personnel (HQP) will result.