Imaging Technology Delivers Data, Saves Time, Enhances Safety in Oak Ridge

A radiation technician uses light detection and ranging equipment to perform scans at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Workers are using the technology at the former Fission Production Development Lab to collect specific measurements to support deactivation and demolition activities.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — A technology that features a remote sensing method using laser pulses to measure distances and create high-resolution 3D models is making a big impact for teams tasked with preparing Manhattan Project and Cold War era facilities for demolition at Oak Ridge.

The light detection and ranging technology is reducing the number of entries team members need to make inside contaminated facilities. It’s also eliminating the need for workers to enter confined spaces, trimming the hours required for surveying, and providing more data to all the teams responsible for getting legacy buildings demolition-ready.

While this isn’t new technology, previous information technology restrictions prevented its deployment on the footprint of the Y-12 National Security Complex, where the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and United Cleanup Oak Ridge (UCOR) conduct large-scale cleanup. Their technology development group identified the light detection and ranging technology as a resource that could be approved, and now it’s being put to work, helping advance several major cleanup projects.

A view of light detection and ranging scans in the basement of the Beta-1 building at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Teams use this data to support excavation planning.

One example is at Y-12’s Beta-1 building, a 300,000-square-foot former uranium enrichment facility. Due to minimal documentation of equipment inside the structure’s Large Coil Test Facility, UCOR is using the technology to map it out. That approach helps keep workers from entering confined spaces.

Crews also employ the technology in the Beta-1 basement to support excavation planning. They will see a significant reduction in the hours required to walk through the site to inspect it. Without the scanning technology, workers spent more than 300 hours on this task at the nearby Alpha-2 building. UCOR estimates that could drop by 80 hours this time around.

At Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), another large-scale cleanup site, workers apply the technology at the former Fission Production Development Lab, also known Building 3517, to collect specific measurements to support deactivation and demolition (D&D) activities.

“This technology is changing the way we do work,” said Scott Ward, UCOR cleanup and D&D engineering manager, said. “It will never eliminate walkdowns, but it will greatly reduce time spent in hazardous environments.”

An exterior view of the 300,000-square-foot Beta-1 building at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Light detection and ranging technology reduces the time needed to walk through these sprawling buildings to inspect them, and it provides more data to the teams responsible for getting buildings demolition-ready.

The technology will also help workers with verifying drawings, supporting inventory management and other tasks.

Now that the technology is part of the OREM-and-UCOR toolbox, future opportunities exist to gather information to determine the types and levels of contamination to support work planning, worker safety, and waste management at other facilities planned for demolition, including ORNL’s Process Waste Treatment Plant and at Y-12’s Beta-4 facility.

-Contributor: Ella Stewart