Safe Transportation of Nuclear Fuel Assemblies by Means of Wheeled Robotic Platforms

Abstract

Certain engineering problems concerning safety of the technological operations of the horizontal transportation of nuclear fuel within the enterprises’ sites were considered. Taking into account current trends in the introduction of robotic systems to reduce the impact of hazardous nuclear materials on personnel, the issue of automated control of the movement of the wheeled robotic platform, which can be used for horizontal transportation of nuclear fuel was studied. The major attention was paid to minimizing the transportation loads on nuclear fuel by means of decreasing the accelerations under its horizontal movement on the robotic wheeled transportation platform, which is a separate issue of the comprehensive safety problem of nuclear materials management. The research of horizontal movement safety of nuclear fuel by means of the robotic wheeled platforms was limited to defining transportation accelerations and was performed by computer simulations using mathematical models of dynamics and electro-mechanics. The mathematical model of the robotic transport wheeled platform loaded with nuclear fuel with the on-board accelerometer ensuring the required measurements necessary for an automated safe movement control system  was built in the form of the Lagrange equations of the second kind and the electro-mechanics equations of the direct current electric motors. The issue of ensuring smooth running during the displacement of a wheeled platform loaded with nuclear fuel was investigated, since especially in this mode the maximum accelerations are observed, which can lead to nuclear fuel damage. Computer simulation was performed using free Scilab software with open program code. It was demonstrated that due to the proper choice of the time algorithm of the voltage of electric motors, it is possible to ensure a small acceleration during the displacement of a robotic wheeled transport platform loaded with nuclear fuel. The obtained result substantiated the possibility of safe horizontal transportation of nuclear fuel on robotic wheeled platforms within the territories of enterprises, which will significantly reduce the harmful impact of hazardous nuclear materials on industrial personnel.