Laser scabbling has the potential to be a valuable technique capable of effectively decontaminating highly radioactive concrete surface at nuclear decommissioning sites. Laser scabbling tool using an optical fiber has a merits of remote operation at a long range, which provides further safety for workers at nuclear decommissioning sites. Furthermore, there is no reaction force and low secondary waste generation, which reduces waste disposal costs. In this study, an integrated decontamination system with laser scabbling tool was employed to test the removal performance of the concrete surface. The integrated decontamination system consisted of a fiber laser, remote controllable mobile cart, and a debris collector device. The mobile cart controlled the translation speed and position of the optical head coupled with 20 m long process fiber. A 5 kW high-powered laser beam emitted from the optical head impacted the concrete block with dimensions of 300 mm × 300 mm × 80 mm to induce explosive spalling on its surface. The concrete debris generated from the spalling process were collected along the flexible tube connected with collector device. We used a three-dimensional scanner device to measure the removed volume and depth profile.

Laser cutting has many advantages, including high-speed cutting potential, no reaction forces, narrow kerf widths, ease of remote control, and more. This makes it the next generation cutting technology for nuclear decommissioning. For this reason, various groups in countries with nuclear power plants have been working on applying laser cutting to nuclear decommissioning. Our group has also been developing in-air and underwater laser cutting technologies. Previous research has focused on efficiently cutting thicker steels. To accomplish this, a cutting head with a long focusing element with a focal length of 600 mm was utilized. A long focusing head is advantageous for cutting thick objects at high speeds because it can maintain a high power density over a long distance. However, with such a long focused beam, the residual laser power that remains after passing through the target object can cut or damage other unwanted objects located behind the target. Utilizing a short focused element can solve this problem, but if the focal length is too short, the cutting capability will be reduced. In this work, we developed and applied a cutting head that utilizes a focused element with a short focal length of 300 mm. Cutting tests with this head allowed us to cut 10-60 mm thick stainless steel plates at a laser power of 6 kW. We also obtained the maximum cutting speed and kerf width for each thickness while increasing the laser power by 1 kW from 1 to 6 kW. The results obtained in this work are expected to be utilized for safe cutting in future nuclear decommissioning applications.

Laser scabbling experiments were conducted with the aim of developing concrete decontamination technology. Laser scabbling system contains a 6 kW fiber laser (IPG YLS-6000, λ=1,070 nm) and optical head, which are connected with process fiber (core dia.: 600 μm, length: 20 m). Optical head consists of two lenses (f = 160 mm and 100 mm) to collimate and focus laser beam. The focused laser beam is passed through the small diameter of nozzle (throat dia.: 3 mm) to prevent the laser-produced debris into head. And then, the focused beam is directed toward concrete block as continuously diverging. The diverged laser beam was incident on the high-strength concrete with 300 mm (length) × 300 mm (height) × 80 mm (width) to induce explosive spalling on the concrete surface. The optical head was moved by X-Y-Z manipulate coupled with a computerized numerical control while scabbling. We have observed not only active spalling on the concrete surface but energetic scattering of laserproduced debris when scabbling on high-strength concretes. It indicates the need for a device capable of collecting the laser-produced debris. We newly designed and manufactured dust collector coupled with cylindrical tube to prevent scattering of laser-produced debris into ambient environment. The collecting system was evaluated by estimating the collecting efficiency for laser-produced debris while scabbling. The collecting efficiency was calculated on the basis of the information on the mass loss of concrete block after laser scabbling and the mass of collected debris in a container. The collecting efficiency was found to be over 85%.

A laser scabbling experiment was performed using a high-power fiber laser to investigate the removal rate of the concrete block and the scabbled depth. Concrete specimens with a 28-day compressive strength of 30 MPa were used in this study. Initially, we conducted the scabbling experiment under a stationary laser beam condition to determine the optimum scan speed. The laser interaction time with the concrete surface varied between 3 s and 40 s. The degree of spalling and vitrification on the surface was primarily dependent on the laser interaction time and beam power. Furthermore, thermal images were captured to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of temperature during the scabbling process. Based on the experimental results, the scan speed at which the optical head moved over the concrete was set to be 300 mm∙min−1 or 600 mm∙min−1 for the 4.8-kW or 6.8-kW laser beam, respectively. The spalling rates and average depth on the concrete blocks were measured to be 87 cm3∙min−1 or 227 cm3∙min−1 and 6.9 mm or 9.8 mm with the 4.8-kW or 6.8-kW laser beams, respectively.