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Printer FriendlyReprinted with permission from Popular Mechanics, September
2001.
© Copyright The Hearst Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Hot Job, For A Robot
Waste from Cold War bomb production is shuttled to storage tanks through valves in concrete equipment pits beneath Hanford, Wash. Many of the 600 pits have become radioactive over the years and also need repairs.
To get the job done more safely, the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratory in Richland, Wash., developed Pit Viper. The remotely
operated hydraulic arm is mounted on a backhoe and operated by a
worker seated safely 200 ft. away. It can brush, spray and grind
as well as a human worker, without getting radiation sickness.
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