Safer, Faster, Cheaper is the mantra when it comes to nuclear decommissioning. Cutting equipment in a D&D project is one of the most time and money consuming activities as it involves any part of a nuclear site. But it comes with a number of challenges: radioactive areas, limited access, airborne considerations, ATEX risk (explosive atmosphere), etc.

In most cases, this activity is still manual with traditional tools such as disk cutters, plasma arc, abrasive water jet involving high costs and long execution times. As it is involving on- site workers to perform the work, some equipment cannot even be dismantled due to high dose (e.g., Reactor Pressure Vessel/Reactor Vessel Internals, fuel processing facility).