14 APRIL 2024 WorldWide Drilling Resource® Armored Excavator Tackles Dangerous Cleanup Adapted from Information by ATLAS GmbH Recently, an ATLAS Excavator 225LC was converted into an armored excavator, a world first, to perform the dangerous cleanup of munitions in the Dethlinger pond, in Germany. Between 1942 and 1952, the German Armed Forces and later the British Army disposed of a huge number of grenades, including those filled with chemical warfare agents, in the Dethlinger pond, a former diatomaceous earth pit near Munster. In 1952, the pond was backfilled with soil and rubble. Fast forward to 2014, the Heidekreis district, which is responsible for the site, launched its initial plans to cleanup the site. The pit was opened in 2021, with a test shaft revealing several thousand pieces of ammunition. Experts developed a cleanup strategy with plans to complete the project in about six years. To start, a hall was erected above the pond with a self-supporting roof and resting on a concrete foundation with sheet piling underneath. The cleanup involves permanently extracting air from the hall and filtering it with activated carbon. Groundwater is also being collected and purified. The large hall is totally sealed and can only be left through airlocks with subsequent decontamination. Other halls, for example for purifying the groundwater or sanitizing personnel, have also been constructed. To ensure the safety of the cleanup team, workers are only allowed to work in the pit using special equipment for short periods of time and an ambulance is on-site during operations. Next was finding an excavator capable of working with such sensitive materials. The ATLAS Excavator 225LC was selected; however, it needed some special adjustments before it could tackle the job of removing potentially explosive munitions. As part of the customization, the excavator needed to meet the safety requirements of STANAG Level II, a NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) standard covering the protection level for occupants of armored vehicles. The front windscreen and side windows of the cab are protected with armored glass and armoured steel is also installed under the cab. The door weighs over 550 pounds and is operated electrically. The cab is completely sealed and features protective ventilation with three compressed air cylinders mounted on the roof, along with sensors for detecting the presence of poisonous gas. The protective ventilation is activated immediately in the event of an emergency thanks to a signal from the sensors. The excavator also features a twin power drive with a standard diesel engine and a 130-kilowatt electric motor. With the cleanup in full swing, the ATLAS armoured excavator is busy excavating material which is transported into containers via conveyor belts. An air-lock system is used to remove these containers. Any munitions discovered in the process are taken to a special facility in Munster, where they are incinerated in a special furnace. "The tender for the special excavator was extremely demanding and complicated. But we succeeded in designing and building a machine that is one of a kind in the world," said Ronald Figiel, project manager for this at the Atlas von der Wehl dealer where development and implementation of the excavator was overseen. Workers were introduced to the armored excavator on-site before cleanup work began. The excavator will remain in the constructed hall until the work is finished. C&G
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDk4Mzk=