Publications / 2011 Proceedings of the 28th ISARC, Seoul, Korea

Robot System for Removing Asbestos Sprayed on Beams

Mitsunori Arai; Haruo Hoshino
Pages 1409-1414 (2011 Proceedings of the 28th ISARC, Seoul, Korea, ISBN 978-89-954572-4-5, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

At this time in Japan, buildings built about 40 to 50 years ago are aging, and demands for demolition or re- newal are increasing. Asbestos materials were used in many parts, and for many purposes in these buildings. But now, us- ing asbestos and asbestos containing materials is prohibited by law, because its toxicity has been confirmed around the world. Therefore all trace of asbestos must be removed safety and properly in advance of demolishing or renewing any old building. Works to scrape asbestos by human workers are very hard and dangerous. The workers have to wear protective suits and full facepiece powered air purifying respirator, and the working space must be completely isolated in order to prevent the leak of any asbestos fibers.

We have developed a robot system for removing asbestos sprayed on steel beams or elsewhere to reduce manual work. This research and development was started in 2007, and the system has been evolved gradually through many experiments in our laboratory. The most recent robot system consists of a multi-DOF manipulator mounted on a vehicle with a lifting plat- form, vacuum suction unit, and manipulator control unit. The tool for scraping asbestos is a rotary wire brush, which is dri- ven by a strong electric motor, and is set on the end of the manipulator. The scraped and ground asbestos is automatically sucked into a special bag by air.

We have tested this robot system on an actual demolition site. As a result, we have confirmed the practical problems and evaluated the efficiency.

Keywords: Sprayed Asbestos, Robot System, Test On Site