Engineered Specialty Systems
With expertise in remote visual inspections and surveillance, Cassy Robinson provides technical support for SRS and off-site customers, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Defense. After the September 11, 2001, New York terrorist attacks, Cassy supported search and rescue teams with on-site fabrication of custom-made search tools. She has also coordinated a national effort to identify technology needs related to Urban Search and Rescue.
SRNL has long been a leading innovator in developing engineered systems to provide a safe way of accomplishing tasks that otherwise would be unsafe, difficult or impossible. Technical staffs from a variety of disciplines work together to integrate commercial off-the-shelf technology with in-house designs to develop cost-effective, field-deployable solutions. Technologies and systems originally developed for the historical nuclear production and materials handling processes at SRS are being used to support customers across DOE as well as other government agencies. This core competency is essential to ensuring the highest levels of safety and human protection and lowest risks to the environment.
Remote and Specialty Systems
Engineering Development
Rapid Response Systems Development
and Integration
Video and Optical Viewing Systems
Packaging Technology
Nondestructive Examination
Rapid Fabrication
Remote and Specialty Systems
SRNL expertise in remote and specialty systems spans the entire engineered systems cycle -- design, development, fabrication, testing, and even assistance in the installation and field operation of unique equipment systems. SRNL is highly experienced in systems required for use in radioactive, hazardous, or inaccessible environments. SRNL specifically designs products for each application and has used its unique capabilities for such applications as:
Engineering Development
SRNL designs and builds custom experimental facilities using state-of-the-art facilities of the Engineering Development Laboratory to provide a unique core capability to meet customer needs. These experimental constructs build on our key applied technologies in engineering modeling and simulation, radioactive materials handling, process engineering development, and pilot testing.
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Rapid Response Systems Development and Integration
SRNL serves as a rapid responder to emergent process issues, and its trouble-shooting experts and tooling enable quick recovery to operational status. Technical staff from mechanical, electronic, robotic, and computer disciplines, together with designers, machinists, fabricators, and technicians, adapt and integrate commercially available components with in-house designs to meet the needs of SRS, DOE, and other government agency customers.
SRNL personnel and technology have been deployed in search and rescue operations for other government agencies. Using equipment originally designed to look into nuclear facilities and components, personnel are able to see and hear in confined spaces that are too small or too dangerous for humans to enter. Special equipment such as infrared cameras, microcameras, microphones, robotic crawlers, fiber-optic cameras, and borescopes have been applied to these tasks.
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SRNL develops audio, video, and cyber forensics tools and techniques to support local and federal law enforcement, national defense, and Homeland Security. The laboratory also provides technical consulting to law enforcement personnel in the selection of commercial tools to support criminal investigations.
Video and Optical Viewing Systems
Visual inspection of inaccessible or hazardous environments is often needed to assess equipment conditions or aid in remote operations. Systems developed at SRNL include:
- High-temperature camera systems
-
Waste tank viewing systems
- Large-scale audio and video facility
surveillance systems
- Small-scale, low-cost disposable camera inspection systems
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Cutaway view of a certified radioactive material shipping package
Packaging Technology
SRNL has extensive experience in hazardous radioactive materials packaging design, evaluation, and regulatory certification procedures that support the requirements of DOE, the Department of Transportation, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Performance requirements from federal law governing the transportation of significant quantities of radioactive material are rigorous. SRNL employs expertise in the areas of structural integrity, thermodynamics, criticality control, radiation shielding, joining technology, and non-destructive examination to certify the transportation packaging for radioactive materials. SRNL’s work on issues such as gas generation during shipping/storage, compatibility of containment materials, and methods for long-term monitoring have resulted in the development of new packaging designs for the transportation and storage of radioactive materials.
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Using digital radiography, the contents of this 55-gallon waste drum are easily inspected.
Nondestructive Examination
SRNL's expertise in non-destructive examination (NDE) technologies has applications in many fields, from hazardous materials disposition to medicine. SRNL experts create cost-effective NDE systems that meet customers' unique needs, often by adapting and applying commercially available components.
- Digital radiography is a highly sensitive and cost-effective alternative to traditional film radiography (X-rays) for looking at the contents inside a container, verifying the quality of welds, detecting deformations and other uses.
- Digital radiography eliminates the need for film and the waste stream that is associated with existing x-ray systems, while at the same time reducing processing time and enhancing the ability to store, retrieve and use the data. Objects analyzed can range from less than half inch in diameter to larger than a 55-gallon drum. One application of SRNL digital radiography expertise is the examination of welds to ensure high quality; in its first year of operation, this application saved the customer over $500,000 by eliminating film and film disposal costs. Other applications include remote inspection of radioactive storage container, establishment of a baseline for special nuclear material contents and container integrity, investigation of defective closure welds in storage containers, inspection of integrated circuit devices, and examination of critical components used by astronauts at the NASA-White Sands Test Facility.
- Ultrasonic testing uses sound waves to locate voids and defects. SRNL first applied ultrasonic testing to examine the Savannah River Site's reactor tanks. Since then, SRNL UT expertise has been applied to evaluating the integrity of the closure weld on General Purpose Heat Source capsules that powered the deep space probe Cassini and to the examination of high-pressure gas reservoirs, eliminating the need for hundreds of man-hours of metallography. top
This model of a welder, produced by rapid fabrication, was used to verify form, fit and function, and pointed out needed design modifications.
Rapid Fabrication
SRNL has developed an extensive rapid prototyping and fabrication capability, allowing rapid fabrication of low-cost plastic prototypes, models, and field-deployable parts. Use of low-cost prototypes reduces personnel, financial, and technology risks in equipment design, development, fabrication, and deployment. Uses for rapid fabrication include the production of:
- models for verification of form, fit and function
- visualization tools for walkdowns, procedure verification, safety analyses, etc.
- working models to use in practicing new procedures
- actual field-deployed parts including camera housings, robot frames, wheels, spacers, housings, etc.
- training aids top
