A methodology for digital mockup update based on the 3D scanned spatial information for the automated dismantling of nuclear facilities

Abstract

An automated cutting procedure is required to dismantle high radioactive nuclear facilities. Also, the cutting scenario for the automated cutting procedure is built based on the digital mockup of the target facility before the physical cutting procedure begins. However, the digital mockup of the nuclear facility and the real site environmental data can be different in terms of the shape, location, and orientation of the nuclear facility’s components. Hence, without an as-built status verification, the worker needs to check the as-built status manually in the site. As a result, the automated cutting procedure is more costly than utilizing workers. Moreover, the procedures cannot be done successfully. We have also experienced the problem when we performed physical cutting tests based on the cutting scenario that was built using the digital mockup of the test-bed environment. In order to perform accurate physical cuttings in the site, the digital mockup needed to be updated based on the real site information before the physical cutting procedure was conducted. To do so, we obtained real site information using 3D scanning and applied spatial information processing technologies to update the digital mockup of a nuclear facility. Since creating a new model was time consuming, and because this process would have to be done manually, we did not create a whole as-built model based on the 3D scanning data. Instead, we updated the existing model, which is comprised of a complete and clean solid geometry. In this study, we proposed an overall digital mockup update framework based on the 3D scanned spatial information and implemented it based on the nuclear facility’s dismantling simulation software system.